Review of Loft Theatre Company production of The History Boys (2012)

It has become standard practice to associate any work by Alan Bennett with comedy that is sharp, incisive and wittily observant.

Strange, then, on viewing this much-acclaimed play today to find that it has somehow mutated into something excessively preachy and pretentious. Only seven or eight years ago it was raved about for its forthrightness and for daring to stampede so many sacred cows.

Certainly the author launches a heavy bombardment against the education system in general, intellectual dogma, sex and sexuality and the yellow brick road that leads to Oxbridge City. But Steve Smith’s well-crafted production cannot overcome three long hours of the very thing that Bennett chooses to mock – a text littered with cliches.

On the credit side, the director has assembled a fine team of young men, many of them new to the Loft, who revel in the roles of the Yorkshire grammar school boys, sparking off each other with infectious enthusiasm. Here, as the prime characters, Ben Burman and Peter Borsada score particularly well. The boys’ scenes in general are vigorous and credible, apart from one hugely indulgent section of French comedy imposed by the author.

Things are less comfortable for the teachers who have to speak lengthy loaded diatribes expounding the play’s multiple messages. Sue Moore’s droll delivery manages to achieve a degree of humour and conviction from much scriptual sermonising while Phil Reynolds as the old-school anarchist tormented by inner passions strikes some powerfully emotive moments in an otherwise somewhat sketchy portrayal. Education, Mr Bennett proffers in one pointedly symbolic statement, is the enemy of education.

Elsewhere, he translates CVs as ‘cheat visas’. His irony along such lines is scattered throughout the play.

What a pity it all seems so stylistically dated now.

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Peter McGarry is an experienced, independent professional theatre critic who has agreed to review Loft Theatre Company productions.

The agreement with the Loft is that Peter is free to express his opinions for good or ill. The Loft Theatre Company has no control whatsoever over the content of these reviews and will never comment publicly on what he writes.