Upclose with “The History Boys”
The hottest ticket at the Arts Festival is Alan Bennett’s “The History Boys.” The production, set in a classroom of boys preparing for their A-levels, has won myriad awards and is now on its way to Broadway. Alexandra Carroll caught up with two of the boys in the midst of a sell-out season at the National Theatre in London.
HK Magazine: Director Nicholas Hytner said when he first read the play, he didn’t think it would fill the theater... how could he be so wrong?
Samuel Barnett: When I first read the play, I didn’t think it would be very good. I didn’t think it was particularly funny and if anything I thought it might be boring because it looked as though it was about a load of people sitting around tables talking about poetry and the First World War. The problem was that none of us could see how it would come to life. We also didn’t realize, from just reading it, what well-formed, distinctive characters Alan had created. It was all there in the writing.
Dominic Cooper: The magic X factor is the tremendous spirit between the eight boys on stage. So many reviews have picked up on how well we work together, and our chemistry, together with an amazing performance from Richard Griffiths, make a great script into a great play. But that really is down to Nicholas Hytner, whatever he says about it only playing 45 performances, he knew. He knew it was something special.
HK: What’s it like living in Alan Bennett’s world?
SB: It’s been a big learning curve. We had to learn about the poets and about the Reformation in Henry VIII’s England and the First and Second World Wars, because these are subjects that come up in the play. In order to deliver a line convincingly, you have to know what you are talking about. Alan writes in such a way that, rather like reciting Shakespeare, if you put a word in the wrong place or add anything, suddenly you find that a line doesn’t work. He is also extremely witty, sometimes quite obscurely, so it took me a while to understand all the lines and the undertones and the sub-text.
HK: You guys are pretty young – does the play resemble your school days?
DC: It’s nothing like any of our school days. I can 100 percent, hand on heart tell you that none of the boys on the stage would ever be considered for Oxford or Cambridge like those characters. No one is intelligent enough!
