The History Boys – Additional Reading

Our test is coming up and of course you’ve all been doing nothing but reading the play and the introduction, right?So, in case you feel there’s nothing left to do (or if you haven’t actually started studying and need some help), here’s some reading material. It is not required, but highly recommended.The ultimate cheat sheet for The History Boys is the workpack put out by the Birmingham Rep Theatre. There’s a thorough plot summary, a brief description of the characters and a discussion of the most important themes; in addition, there are interviews with Bennett, Hytner and one of the actors.Slate Magazine has an article about why it’s really sad that Irwin comes across as the villain.  Personally, I think that this article is completely misguided and that Irwin isn’t the villain at all, but this review goes to show that perhaps something was lost in translation from a British stage to a U.S. movie theater. For more of the same, you can listen to the Slate Spoiler podcast on the film, in which the reviewers are also puzzled by the good guy teacher – bad guy teacher conundrum:

This teacher (Irwin) wants them to challenge assumptions, I think, well, he must be the good guy teacher. …I think the reason it took  so long for me to catch on to that was that  I went in there thinking “challenging assumptions is good, you know,  it’s the Dead Poets Society model teaching, and groping boys is bad…”

Don’t even get me started on The Dead Poets Society. I think these Slate people have got it all wrong, but they are very interesting to listen to.Though not a direct answer to the Slate article, the interview with Alan Bennett and Nicholas Hytner in the Daily Telegraph  challenges the assumption that any one of the teachers is the hero or the villain. It gives some very interesting background information on the play and the production development.Have fun!