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Simon Rouse's Hector and his history boys Pictures: Marc Brenner The History Boys Coventry Belgrade ***** The National Theatre's premiere of The History Boys produced a glorious group destined to go on to fame in theatre, TV and film: James Corden (Timms, burly and outrageous), Jamie Parker (the shrewd Christian devotee), Dominic Cooper (sex-mad Dakin), Samuel Barnett (the touching young Posner) - not forgetting Russell Tovey as the 'hopeless' but triumphant Rudge ("might get into Loughborough on a bad day"), who outwits them all. And the others, as here, shone too. Let's hope this present ensemble yields similar success. They all deserve to. Usually their antics, and songs, and impishness, are a match, not just nearly but entirely, for their predecessors. Of course, the real star, with his 2004 award-winning script (the further hilarious film followed in 2006) is Alan Bennett himself. There are so many gobsmacking lines, such impudence, cheek and sexy rough and tumble, so much outrage, they are a gift for a bunch of sixth formers like these - or come to think of it, any bunch of boys. First of all, the teachers. No exact cast list was given (a real nuisance reviewing the boys below), but Milo Twomey as the dotty, interfering Headmaster set the show ingeniously on the road. ''Pourquoi ce garçon est sans ses...trousers?" he who went to Hull and resents it being known just for Larkin - stutters as he fails to fit into Mr. Hector's French cabaret. Then "Grow a moustache."
Gillian Bevan as Totty, Mrs. Lintott with Milo Twomey as the Headmaster Gillian Bevan as the common sense Mrs. Lintott ('Totty') emerges with some unforgettable Bennett lines: "A grope is a grope; it is NOT the Annunciation.' "They had it at first hand". (Or at university)"That's where I had my first pizza. Other things of course, but it's the pizza one remembers". "I'd say he (Dakin) was cunt-struck. He (Hector) would like that - it's a compound adjective." "Doesn't it occur to you that one of those interviewing you might be a woman?" And "Putting up with five centuries of masculine ineptitude." Above all, Bevan delivered to perfection the finale (the boys' future): it was utterly mesmerising. Bevan and Twomey both give of their best. She is a kind of intermediary between him and the rest - staff, boys - and she excels, just as he - constantly worsted by them all - gives a deliciously awful characterisataion, rivalling the impossible Clive Merrison as the Head in the film. Of course central is Hector - or 'Douglas' as is apparently his unused real name - is central to the boys' experience - until a youthful, uppety rival appears. One of the most memorable scenes is when Hector (Simon Rouse) breaks down, having been virtually sacked, and young Posner, (Lewis Cornay), unaware of the reason, is the one from a full class who goes forward to comfort him. More often Hector is on rapturous form, hitting - "Little turd" "Ignorant little tart". "Trollop" - the joyously or bumptiously or verbally misbehaving boys (whom he of course encourages). Or reflective: "What women know and don't know is always a mystery to me'. "I would have thought it was giving them proof against the primacy of fact." Rouse's Hector was a little subdued, but the restraint worked well when battling and tweaking the boys. You couldn't quite imagine him cradling a boy's patient balls for the lollipop lady to see. In some ways Bill Milner, with a host of films behind him from boyhood, capped them all. His dapper, formal, insistent, clever-clogs young master, who gradually realises his charges are impressively well-informed, spoke lucidly and sharply, catching the character of Irwin, the new 'temporary' young teacher, at least as well as Stephen Campbell Moore in Nicholas Hytner's film. His attraction to Dakin (Archie Christoph-Allen) is as unbelievable as it is there, but his challenges to the gang, including the bizarre foreskins of Christ, are teasing as well as demanding. One crucial thing was his pacing - snappy, urgent, controlling - perhaps owed to Seán Linnen's astute direction (some of the boys' blocking was top rate).
Lewis Cornay as the small, Jewish, gay Sheffielder Posner. As for the boys, they are a hoot from start to finish. Even in the film Lockwood is not always prominent: better here: Lockwood (Curtis Kemlo) was demanding in places, vigorous, petulant and challenging. Scripps (Yazdan Qafouri) was a delight, both for his one-liners and for his remarkability and his versatility actually playing the keyboard on stage, and contributing so much by it. Crowther (Tashinga Bepete) was the benign one, calm and always anticipating what was coming. Rudge (Ned Costello), of course, whose father turned out to be a room Scout at Christ Church, and was welcomed into their Rugger Team. Best of all was Akhtar (Mahesh Parmar), particularly canny incisive who managed somehow to be the one who kept the cast under control. A first-rate, excitingly good performance. But then there was red, curly-haired Timms (Teddy Hinde) - Hector's 'little turd' - pretty wild in the James Corden role, whose sharp, witty, sneery cracks and sheer sense of mischief outdid them all. Funny, teasing and endlessly subtle; "We're poor little sheep who've lost our way” - and they all riotously go "Baa..". He hit the comedy jackpot every time. Dakin was a joy at every turn - from his strip down as the French (or Belgian) Wounded Soldier to the rest of his outrageous lines: "You don't not wank? Just tell me on the big day and I'll stand well back." Or "Auden's 'Lay your sleeping head, my love - that was a pupil'. Not forgetting "Neeshaw" (Scripps: "It's Nietsche") But the best lines are allotted to the form's junior, Posner: "I'm a Jew, I'm small, I'm homosexual and I live in Sheffield. I'm fucked”. There are lots of delicious moments, such as when Posner is at last hugged and then grabbed and swung by Dakin who he aches for. Linnen is particularly brilliant in the way he directs Posner. The lad is smart - he's the only one with perfect trouser creases. "All my life I'll be the one squatting at the front." The scene between him and Hector on Hardy's 'Drummer Hodge' was melting: exquisitely spoken and inspired in the way at the close the boy briefly takes, or touches, Hector's hand. The magical "Dakin writes like him. I write like Dakin... our eyes meet looking at Dakin." But above all, it's Posner who wonderfully leads the songs. (Vera Lynn's 'As you wave me goodbye' . . . The whole group sings 'There's always tomorrow' in fabulously perfect harmony). Miraculous. And most moving of all, the final 'Bye Bye Blackbird.' So Posner was the treat of the show. But - before a full house audience - there was so much good about the performance - the acting, the direction, the boys' (West Yorkshire?) accents, (apart from the appallingly and wholly inappropriately blasting music), the reenacted black and white film scenes, the blocking, the competent set moving (largely by the cast) that one has to sing its praises loud and clear. To 12-10-24. Roderic Dunnett 08-10-24 A new term for The History Boys starts at Malvern on 15-10-24 |
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