Another review originally written for amazon. Bennett is something of a hero:
Alan Bennett, The History Boys
A minor play?
Not quite forty years on from Forty Years On, Alan Bennett
returned to the subject of a school and education in a play that seems to have
acquired a great deal of affection from its audience. Where the school in his
earlier play was an unreal place, a model for the wider English society Bennett
was mocking, The History Boys takes a more realistic approach to its
subject(s). Personally, I’ve always regarded The History Boys as a minor work.
Against that, I must admit that I also believe the strength and emotional power
of much of Alan Bennett’s work derives from the fact that it is so often in a
minor key, frequently focussing on apparently mundane and constricted lives. In
contrast, the film of The History Boys (which I enjoyed) seems all to ready to settle for
sentimentality. Bennett’s wit and humanity is much in evidence, as in all his
work, but it seems marred by a sentimentality he avoids elsewhere. This might
in part be simply down to the mechanics of film. Matched with appropriately
wistful music, Richard Griffiths’ delivery of the line “Pass it on, boys, pass
it on” can’t help but raise a tear. And the central argument around which the
narrative is constructed, that the kindness and teaching methods represented by
Hector are under threat from the more utilitarian and aggressive approach
favoured by Irwin and the Headmaster is a difficult one to make in terms of a
play without falling prey to sentimentality, for all that Bennett consciously
avows any nostalgia for his own schooldays in his typically lengthy
introduction to the playtext.
Reading the play text, it’s particularly interesting to see
what was cut, and what was changed. The film elides the flash forwards to
Irwin’s later career, leaving it as simply a rueful acknowledgement of where he
went after his teaching, which is probably a change for the better. Also
improved is (ironically, given my comments about the sentimentality of the film) the happier ending granted to Posner. The play is harsher, but
oddly less convincing. It’s also a very gay play, which is again slightly
unconvincing, but also rather sweet. It doesn’t quite ring true for me. Dakin seems
largely unconcerned about Posner’s obvious desire for him, whilst they all seem
to regard Hector’s indiscretions as little more than a minor inconvenience. I
went to a relatively liberal school in the 1990s, and I don’t believe the sixth
formers I knew would have been so accepting of either an obviously gay teacher
or homosexuality in general. On the other hand, an American friend has described his own
school experiences to me as “We were a very gay year!”, so who knows. In the
context of the work of a writer who, on the evidence of his autobiographical
writing and occasional public remarks has apparently struggled somewhat with publicly
acknowledging his sexuality, now appears happy to write a play which is so openly
concerned with both a gay man and a gay teenager is rather moving. The play’s
treatment of some of its homosexual characters feels freer and more open than
any of his past work.
Is it a bad play? I find that I don’t care. Whatever its faults
of sentimentality and nostalgia, the play is still angry about many of the
right things, funny, and despite it all, intensely moving. Minor work or not, I
love this play.
