I have had a partial change of mind and definite change of heart about Alan Bennett's The History Boys: those sparky, larky post-A Level, north of England, 1980s grammar school chaps who make it to Oxbridge thanks, unbelievably, to lessons from Orlando Wells's Irwin, a young supply teacher, replacing Isla Blair's suitably tart historian.
At the 2004 premiere I was in the minority of unenthused critics. I still have reservations, but I was moved, disturbed and exhilarated last night. Simon Cox's production, based on Nicholas Hytner's original, makes a far stronger emotional impact, thanks to Stephen Moore, giving the performance of a lifetime as an old, gay teacher. The multiple scenic shifts work better here than at the National.
In 2004 I thought Bennett failed to translate his disapproval of materialist, exam-obsessed notions of English education into exciting dramatic form. I believed the gay sub-plot, that goes off at a tangent and into a sexual rectangle that lines up two teachers and two late teenage schoolboys, veered towards the preposterous. The History Boys now seems less a straight play, more Bennett's parable about his loathing of a Blairite higher education system that fast-tracks you to riches.
It works as a farcically-comic revue and reverie, centring upon ideologically opposed schoolmasters. Moore's elderly Hector declines and Orlando Wells's Irwin teaches his charges to mint surprising interpretations of history, ending up a smooth Blairite advisor and TV historian.
In brief, filmic scenes, with lessons lasting just a few minutes, the history-specialist boys, including an almost mute Muslim and Black, relish Hector's General Studies lessons which open doors to the arts. They are found singing with piano accompaniment and forever acting - Coward's Brief Encounter, Bette Davis in Now Voyager and Pal Joey. The atmosphere is jubilantly playful, more about Bennett's 1950s than Thatcher's 1980s: the allusions to the likes of AE Housman, George Formby and film posters for Orson Welles are give-aways.
The play's sad, gay longings are trivialised and treated with misguided frivolity. Even so Moore's Hector, a teacher to his roving fingertips, all ruminative in grey-green, buoyed up by irony and the pleasures of elucidating poetry, achieves an overwhelming pathos when sexually downed and outed. And Ben Barnes's bisexual History Boy brilliantly plays a History Boy with a nonchalant talent to seduce.
Until 16 April (0870 950 0925).
The History Boys
Wyndham's Theatre
Charing Cross Road, WC2H 0DA
