The Stage Club Presents: The History Boys by Alan Bennett

PUBLISHED April 26th, 2016 12:15 am | UPDATED June 7th, 2016 03:24 pm

“One of the hardest things for boys to learn is that a teacher is human. One of the hardest things for a teacher to learn is not to try and tell them.”
― Alan Bennett, The History Boys

The Story

Set in 1983 – when Margaret Thatcher was the Prime Minister of Britain – The History Boys take place in a modest grammar school in the industrial city of Sheffield. A group of sixth-formers with unusually good A-level history results are streamed off to stay an extra term and sit for the Oxbridge (Oxford or Cambridge University) entrance exams.

Hector, the English teacher and Mrs. Lintott, the History teacher are delighted that their charges can have a stab at experiencing student life at such elite institutions. The Head Master hires another teacher, Irwin, to get the boys through the Oxbridge exam. An ex-student of Oxford, Irwin has a bag of tricks to help the boys. Conflicts ensue between Hector, the old idealist and maverick, and Irwin, the young pragmatist, who is very focused on getting his students to pass the exam. The two represent opposite conceptions of what the study of history should be like.

The boys – Scripps, Dakin, Posner, Timms, Rudge, Crowther, Lockwood and Akthar (played by Chris Jones, Lim Shien Han, Ian Teoh, Rishi Vadrevu, George Kinman, Matthew Lim, Jonathan Lee, and Abhishek Saraf respectively) – represent an unruly bunch of bright, funny 17- 18 year olds in a British boys’ school. And as typical boys, their talk centres around girls, sports and getting a place at a good university.

In The History Boys, playwright Alan Bennett evokes the special period and place that the sixth form represents in an English boy’s life. He also raises questions about the nature of history, how it’s taught, and also questions about the purpose of education today.

We Chat with Director Nick Perry

Director Nick Perry, a long-time collaborator of The Stage Club, has performed in more plays than he cares to remember. His most recent roles were as General von Schmelling in “Allo’, Allo’” and as the titular tiger in “Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo”. Past directorial credits include Neil Simon’s “The Female Odd Couple”, Ray Cooney’s “Out of Order” and Willy Russell’s “Educating Rita’.

The story of The History Boys resonates with Nick, who as a Humanities instructor himself could not be more excited about this directorial opportunity. We asked him to give his two cents’ worth on the upcoming production:

Why has the Stage Club chosen “The History Boys” for its next production?

Several reasons. Firstly, it is superb play. Alan Bennett’s writing is masterful – full of wit and wisdom and numerous unforgettable lines. Its quality is endorsed by the many awards it received when it was first produced in 2004 and this is further cemented by it being voted the UK’s favourite play back in 2013. This is also the Singapore premiere of The History Boys.

What attracted to you to the play?

Alan Bennett is a great writer and this might well be his finest work to date. I teach on the Humanities Programme in Hwa Chong, which was originally set up to get boys into Oxford and Cambridge, so it’s pretty close to what happens on stage. It’s not so much my experience as an educator, as the memories it brings back with of myself as a schoolboy in a Grammar school like the one depicted in the play.

What are the greatest challenges for the cast?

Perhaps the biggest challenge was to get the boys to look like they had been together through seven years of schooling. They should know each other so well that they move and respond like a single organism, particularly when ‘threatened’ by the idea of a new teacher. They can be quite formidable: an eight-headed hydra delicately spitting sarcasm. In addition, they had to be able to sing, (two play the piano, one the violin) and mimic scenes from classic old films like Brief Encounter.

The History Boys is set in Britain during the Thatcher years – how will this resonate with the current audience in Singapore?

Thatcher’s eighties Britain may seem a long way back, but education is an ever present subject. We all experience it, it shapes us, we look back on it. The History Boys looks at the process, the methods of teaching, what we learn, what is valuable and what is, to quote Hector, “a waste of time”. The clash of two contrasting approaches dominates the play. Irwin, the new teacher, is brought in not just to make the boys exam-smart, but to make them exam-original; Hector sees exam papers as ‘Pornography’.

What is the message you hope the audience will take home with them after watching “The History Boys”?

To think about not just education, but the very stuff of life itself. There are no easy answers. Bennett makes Hector into an eccentric, inspirational, much-loved teacher, but he has an unsettling flaw. It would also be easy to simply see the Headmaster as a cartoon villain, but he has to accommodate Hector’s eccentricities and run a school. That said, there are many wonderful life-affirming moments that resonate deeply throughout the play.

The History Boys runs 4 to 7 May 2016 at the KC Arts Centre – Home of SRT. Tickets available at SISTIC.