The History Boys

by Alan Bennett

  It is to Nicholas Hytner that I owe, among so much else, the idea for the original play, the one I didn’t quite write, as it first came to me when I was listening to him being interviewed by Michael Berkeley on BBC Radio 3’s Private Passions. Nick had earlier told me of his schooldays at Manchester Grammar School and how, having a good singing voice, he had sung in a boys’ choir with the Hallé under Barbirolli. I was expecting him to talk about this on Private Passions, but rather to my disappointment he didn’t. However, one of the records he chose was Ella Fitzgerald singing ‘Bewitched’ with its original Moss Hart lyrics, and it occurred to me at the time how theatrical this would sound sung by a boy with an unbroken voice.

  This in turn took me back to my own childhood when, though I was no singer, I had been very slow to grow up, my own voice still unbroken when I was well past sixteen. So one of the history boys as first written was a boy much as I had been, a child in a class of young men. Nick (whose own voice broke at twelve) thought that these days a sixteen-year-old boy with an unbroken voice was both unlikely and impossible to cast. This I could appreciate, though at the time I abandoned the notion with some regret.

  The casting difficulty I can understand, but I don’t entirely agree that such late development no longer occurs. It’s true that today most children develop earlier, but the few who don’t suffer more acutely in consequence, and it certainly still happens. I knew one boy, the son of a friend, who matured every bit as late as I did, though he coped with it much better than me. Looking back, I see those years from fourteen to sixteen as determining so much that I would later wish away, particularly a sense of being shut out that I have never entirely lost.

  As it is, Posner is the heir to the character I never quite wrote, a boy who is young for his age and whose physical immaturity engenders a premature disillusion. Watching Sam Barnett playing the part, I wince to hear my own voice at sixteen.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Introduction

  A Note On The First Production

  Act One

  Act Two

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  By the Same Author

  Copyright

  A Note on the First Production

  I have not included many stage directions or even noted changes of scene; the more fluid the action the better. The design of the National Theatre production, by Bob Crowley, was of a classroom in a school built in the 1960s, with the scenes in the staff room and Headmaster’s study achieved by re-arranging the sliding walls. These scene changes were done largely by the boys themselves, under cover of film sequences of life in the school projected on a large video screen above the set proper. These, like the opening shots of Irwin’s TV series, Heroes or Villains?, were filmed by Ben Taylor. Except for one moment towards the end of Act Two, I have not given details of these video inserts in the script, though they do often help to move the action along: we see Dakin making up to the Headmaster’s secretary, for instance; Hector coming disconsolately down the corridor after his dismissal; and the start of his final trip on the motor bike.

  There is a piano on stage throughout, and this, too, helps to mask the scene change, besides accompanying the film extracts which enliven Hector’s eccentric teaching regime.

  The History Boys was first performed in the Lyttelton auditorium of the National Theatre, London, on 18 May 2002. The cast was as follows:

  Akthar Sacha Dhawan

  Crowther Samuel Anderson

  Dakin Dominic Cooper

  Lockwood Andrew Knott

  Posner Samuel Barnett

  Rudge Russell Tovey

  Scripps Jamie Parker

  Timms James Corden

  Headmaster Clive Merrison

  Mrs Lintott Frances de la Tour

  Hector Richard Griffiths

  Irwin Stephen Campbell Moore

  Other parts played by Tom Attwood, Rudi Dharmalingam,

  Colin Haigh, Joseph Raishbrook and Joan Walker

  Director Nicholas Hytner

  Designer Bob Crowley

  Lighting Designer Mark Henderson

  Music Richard Sisson

  Sound Designer Colin Pink

  Video Director Ben Taylor

  The cover photograph includes members of the cast of this production. From back row to front: Russell Tovey, Andrew Knott, Jamie Parker, Samuel Anderson, Dominic Cooper, James Corden, Sacha Dhawan, Samuel Barnett

  Characters

  THE BOYS

  Posner

  Dakin

  Scripps

  Rudge

  Lockwood

  Akthar

  Timms

  Crowther

  THE TEACHERS

  Irwin

  Hector

  Headmaster

  Mrs Lintott (Dorothy)

  THE HISTORY BOYS

  Act One

  Irwin is in a wheelchair, in his forties, addressing three or four unidentified MPs.

  Irwin This is the tricky one.

  The effect of the bill will be to abolish trial by jury in at least half the cases that currently come before the courts and will to a significant extent abolish the presumption of innocence.

  Our strategy should therefore be to insist that the bill does not diminish the liberty of the subject but amplifies it; that the true liberty of the subject consists in the freedom to walk the streets unmolested etc., etc., secure in the knowledge that if a crime is committed it will be promptly and sufficiently punished and that far from circumscribing the liberty of the subject this will enlarge it.

  I would try not to be shrill or earnest. An amused tolerance always comes over best, particularly on television. Paradox works well and mists up the windows, which is handy. ‘The loss of liberty is the price we pay for freedom’ type thing.

  School. That’s all it is. In my case anyway. Back to school.

  Though the general setting is a sixth-form classroom in a boys’ school in the eighties in the north of England, when Hector first comes in, a figure in motor-cycle leathers and helmet, the stage is empty.

  His sixth-formers, eight boys of seventeen or eighteen, come briskly on and take Hector out of his motor-cycle gear, each boy removing an item and as he does so presenting it to the audience with a flourish.

  Lockwood (with gauntlets) Les gants.

  Akthar (with a scarf) L’écharpe.

  Rudge Le blouson d’aviateur.

  Finally the helmet is removed.

  Timms Le casque.

  The taking-off of the helmet reveals Hector (which is both his surname and his nickname) as a schoolmaster of fifty or so.

  Dakin, a handsome boy, holds out a jacket.

  Dakin Permettez-moi, monsieur.

  Hector puts on the jacket.

  Hector Bien fait, mes enfants. Bien fait.

  Hector is a man of studied eccentricity. He wears a bow tie.

  Classroom.

  Now fades the thunder of the youth of England clearing summer’s obligatory hurdles.

  Felicitations to you all. Well done, Scripps! Bravo, Dakin! Crowther, congratulations. And Rudge, too. Remarkable. All, all deserve prizes. All, all have done that noble and necessary thing, you have satisfied the examiners of the Joint Matriculation Board, and now, proudly jingling your A Levels, those longed-for emblems of your conformity, you come before me once again to resume your education.

  Rudge What were A Levels, then?

  Hector Boys, boys, boys.

  A Levels, Rudge are credentials, qualifications, the footings of your CV. Your Cheat’s Visa. Time now for the bits in between. You will see from the timetable that our esteemed Headmaster has given these periods the euphemistic title –

  Posner looks up the word in the dictionary.

  – of General Studies.

  Posner ‘Euphemism … substitution of mild or vague or roundabout expression for a harsh or direct one.’

  Hector A verbal fig-leaf. The mild or vague expression being Gene
ral Studies. The harsh or direct one, Useless Knowledge. The otiose – (Points at Posner.) – the trash, the department of why bother?

  Posner ‘Otiose: serving no practical purpose, without function.’

  Hector If, heaven forfend, I was ever entrusted with the timetable, I would call these lessons A Waste of Time.

  Nothing that happens here has anything to do with getting on, but remember, open quotation marks, ‘All knowledge is precious whether or not it serves the slightest human use,’ close quotation marks.

  Who said? Lockwood? Crowther? Timms? Akthar?

  Pause.

  ‘Loveliest of trees the cherry now.’

  Akthar A. E. Housman, sir.

  Hector ‘A. E. Housman, sir.’

  Timms Wasn’t he a nancy, sir?

  Hector Foul, festering grubby-minded little trollop. Do not use that word. (He hits him on the head with an exercise book.)

  Timms You use it, sir.

  Hector I do, sir, I know, but I am far gone in age and decrepitude.

  Crowther You’re not supposed to hit us, sir.

  We could report you, sir.

  Hector (despair) I know, I know. (an elaborate pantomime, all this)

  Dakin You should treat us with more respect. We’re scholarship candidates now.

  We’re all going in for Oxford and Cambridge.

  There is a silence and Hector sits down at his table, seemingly stunned.

  Hector ‘Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire.’

  I thought all that silliness was finished with.

  I thought that after last year we were settling for the less lustrous institutions … Derby, Leicester, Nottingham. Even my own dear Sheffield. Scripps. You believe in God. Believe also in me: forget Oxford and Cambridge.

  Why do you want to go there?

  Lockwood Old, sir. Tried and tested.

  Hector No, it’s because other boys want to go there. It’s the hot ticket, standing room only. So I’ll thank you (hitting him) if nobody mentions Oxford (hit) or Cambridge (hit) in my lessons. There is a world elsewhere.

  Dakin You’re hitting us again, sir.

  Hector Child, I am your teacher.

  Whatever I do in this room is a token of my trust.

  I am in your hands.

  It is a pact. Bread eaten in secret.

  ‘I have put before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.’ Oxford and Cambridge!

  He sits with his head on the desk, a parody of despair.

  Posner (Edgar) ‘Look up, My Lord.’

  Timms (Kent)

  ‘Vex not his ghost. O let him pass. He hates him That would upon the rack of this tough world Stretch him out longer.’

  Posner (Edgar)

  ‘O, he is gone indeed.’

  Timms (Kent)

  ‘The wonder is he hath endured so long.

  He but usurped this life.’

  Bell goes. Hector sits up.

  Hector

  ‘I have a journey, sir, shortly to go;

  My master calls me, I must not say no.’

  Posner (Edgar)

  ‘The weight of this sad time we must obey

  Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.’

  Timms The hitting never hurt. It was a joke. None of us cared. We lapped it up.

  Crowther He goes mad.

  Lockwood He hit me. He never hits me.

  Rudge He hits you if he likes you. He never touches me.

  Dakin (happily) I’m black and blue.

  Scripps It’s true what he said. I did believe in God.

  Nobody else does. Like stamp collecting, it seems to have gone out and I suspect even the vicar thinks I am a freak.

  But the big man is glad.

  ‘The Prayer Book. Hymns Ancient and Modern. Lucky boy!’

  Staff room.

  Headmaster Mrs Lintott, Dorothy.

  Mrs Lintott Headmaster?

  Headmaster These Oxbridge boys. Your historians. Any special plans?

  Mrs Lintott Their A Levels are very good.

  Headmaster Their A Levels are very good. And that is thanks to you, Dorothy. We’ve never had so many. Remarkable! But what now – in teaching terms?

  Mrs Lintott More of the same?

  Headmaster Oh. Do you think so?

  Mrs Lintott It’s what we’ve done before.

  Headmaster Quite. Without much success. No one last year. None the year before. When did we last have anyone in history at Oxford and Cambridge?

  Mrs Lintott I tend not to distinguish.

  Headmaster Between Oxford and Cambridge?

  Mrs Lintott Between centres of higher learning. Last year two at Bristol, one at York. The year before …

  Headmaster Yes, yes. I know that, Dorothy. But I am thinking league tables. Open scholarships. Reports to the Governors. I want them to do themselves justice. I want them to do you justice. Factually tip-top as your boys always are, something more is required.

  Mrs Lintott More?

  Headmaster Different.

  I would call it grooming did not that have overtones of the monkey house.

  ‘Presentation’ might be the word.

  Mrs Lintott They know their stuff. Plainly stated and properly organised facts need no presentation, surely.

  Headmaster Oh, Dorothy. I think they do.

  ‘The facts: serving suggestion.’

  Mrs Lintott A sprig of parsley, you mean? Or an umbrella in the cocktail? Are dons so naive?

  Headmaster Naive, Dorothy? Or human?

  I am thinking of the boys. Clever, yes, remarkably so. Well taught, indubitably. But a little … ordinaire?

  Think charm. Think polish. Think Renaissance Man.

  Mrs Lintott Yes, Headmaster.

  Headmaster Hector.

  The Headmaster leaves as Hector comes in.

  Hector Headmaster.

  Mrs Lintott Didn’t you try for Cambridge?

  Hector Oxford.

  I was brought up in the West Riding. I wanted somewhere new. That is to say old. So long as it was old I didn’t mind where I went.

  Mrs Lintott Durham was good in that respect.

  Hector Sheffield wasn’t.

  Cloisters, ancient libraries … I was confusing learning with the smell of cold stone. If I had gone to Oxford I’d probably never have worked out the difference.

  Mrs Lintott Durham was very good for history, it’s where I had my first pizza. Other things, too, of course, but it’s the pizza that stands out.

  And fog, would you believe, one morning inside the cathedral. I loved it.

  I wish some of them were trying to go there.

  Hector No chance.

  Mrs Lintott No. Our fearless leader has made up his mind.

  And they are bright, brighter than last year’s. But that’s not enough apparently.

  Hector It never was, even in my day.

  Mrs Lintott Poor sods.

  Scripps I’d been on playground duty, so I saw him on what must have been his first morning waiting outside the study. I thought he was a new boy, which of course he was, so I smiled.

  Then Felix turned up.

  Irwin is a young man, about twenty-five or so.

  Headmaster You are?

  Irwin Irwin.

  Headmaster Irwin?

  Irwin The supply teacher.

  Headmaster Quite so.

  He beckons Irwin cagily into the study.

  Scripps Hector had said that if I wanted to write I should keep a notebook, and there must have been something furtive about Irwin’s arrival because I wrote it down. I called it clandestine, a word I’d just learnt and wasn’t sure how to pronounce.

  Headmaster The examinations are in December, which gives us three months at the outside … Well, you were at Cambridge, you know the form.

  Irwin Oxford, Jesus.

  Headmaster I thought of going, but this was the fifties. Change was in the air. A spirit of adventure.
/>   Irwin So, where did you go?

  Headmaster I was a geographer. I went to Hull.

  Irwin Oh. Larkin.

  Headmaster Everybody says that. ‘Hull? Oh, Larkin.’ I don’t know about the poetry … as I say, I was a geographer … but as a librarian he was pitiless. The Himmler of the Accessions Desk. And now, we’re told, women in droves.

  Art. They get away with murder.

  They are a likely lot, the boys. All keen. One oddity.

  Rudge. Determined to try for Oxford and Christ Church of all places. No hope. Might get in at Loughborough in a bad year. Otherwise all bright. But they need polish. Edge. Your job. We are low in the league. I want to see us up there with Manchester Grammar School, Haberdashers’ Aske’s. Leighton Park. Or is that an open prison? No matter.

  Pause.

  There is a vacancy in history.

  Irwin (thoughtfully) That’s very true.

  Headmaster In the school.

  Irwin Ah.

  Headmaster Get me scholarships, Irwin, pull us up the table, and it is yours. I am corseted by the curriculum, but I can find you three lessons a week.

  Irwin Not enough.

  Headmaster I agree. However, Mr Hector, our long-time English master, is General Studies. There is passion there. Or, as I prefer to call it, commitment. But not curriculum-directed. Not curriculum-directed at all.

  In the circumstances we may be able to filch an hour. (going) You are very young.

  Grow a moustache.

  I am thinking classroom control.

  Classroom. Music. Posner sings some Piaf.

  Hector Où voudriez-vous travailler cet après-midi?

  Rudge Dans un garage.

  Boys Non, non.

  Scripps Pas encore. Ayez pitié de nous.

  Hector Dakin. Où voudriez-vous travailler aujourd’hui?

  Dakin Je voudrais travailler… dans une maison de passe.

  Hector Oo-la-la.

  Boys Qu’est ce que c’est?

  Qu’est-ce qu’une maison de passe?

  Posner A brothel.

  Hector Très bien. Mais une maison de passe où tous les clients utilisent le subjonctif ou le conditionnel, oui?