The Stage

The History Boys

Published Tuesday 9 February 2010 at 18:35 by Kevin Berry

Alan Bennett’s home city gets a home grown production of The History Boys, his most popular play, and not before time - it has been anticipated with marked eagerness.

Eight state school boys are being groomed for Oxbridge entrance exams. Their general studies teacher Hector is wildly eccentric, he quotes poetry and he disdains exams. The dependable Mrs Lintott (Penelope Beaumont) is traditional, teaching facts and nothing more. Newcomer Irwin, a supply teacher, urges a slick approach. But this play is not merely a comparison of educational styles - its subtleties and intrigues will reward three or four viewings.

The boy actors shine from the off. Their group movements have the exuberance of youth and some of its uncertainties. Their teachers, with the exception of Gerard Murphy’s Hector, are rather hurried and take time to establish their motives and importance. Ben Lambert’s Irwin is less unsettling than he could be. Thomas Wheatley’s headmaster exudes too much old school decency to be thought self-serving. Happily the second act sees the teachers more firmly established.

As Scripps, the young narrator Rob Delaney is impressively assured. Christopher Keegan’s playing of the rotund boy Timms, in his stage debut, is a welcome joy.

Kyle Redmond-Jones has the disturbing charisma for Dakin, the arrogant boy who is bedding the head’s secretary and who has teasing, sexually explicit encounters with Irwin.

Janet Bird’s spare set suggests the isolation of a basement classroom without messy detail. A slowly revolving stage makes the classroom scenes easier on the eye and easier to act.

Leeds audiences will lap this up. Audiences at the tour venues will be demanding an extra week.

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