The History Boys

Published Thursday 4 January 2007 at 15:30 by John Thaxter

With two sell-out seasons at the National, handfuls of Best Play awards on both sides of the Atlantic, film and radio versions, plus an antipodean tour, Alan Bennett’s lively debate about the means and purpose of education finally transfers to the West End. 

Set in a northern grammar in the eighties and featuring a bunch of bright sixth-formers being groomed for their Oxbridge exams, all that remains is perhaps a spin-off television series.

The company is the cast for the second UK tour, led by Stephen Moore who last September at short notice took over the role of Hector, memorably created by the award-winning Richard Griffiths. Moore gives this crumpled, unconventional teacher with a love of literature, his own more introspective interpretation, ending in tears when his fondness for groping the boys at high speed on a motorbike gets him the sack.

The antithesis of all that Hector stands for is Irwin; a supply teacher who shares the headmaster’s enthusiasm for league tables and image, destined to become a journalist and Westminster spinmeister. But attractively played by Orlando Wells, Irwin’s readiness to turn history on its head is now more Cameronian than Blairite, striking a better balance between the educational polarities and perhaps more closely matching Bennett’s intentions.

Among the boys Steven Webb, a veteran of the first UK tour, again plays the vulnerable gay Posner (‘Is it a phase?’), Philip Correia is the rough-edged Rudge, with Ben Barnes as the gangly adonis, Dakin. 

William Chubb’s headmaster makes embarrassed use of four-letter words that hang heavy on his angry but conventional shoulders, while Isla Blair is outstanding as the splendidly centred history mistress, giving the evening its grounding of female common sense.