"THE HISTORY BOYS";
a play by Alan Bennett.

The other day I went to see Alan Bennett's play
'The History Boys' at Wyndhams Theatre in the
West End. I am a fan of Bennett's work and was
looking forward to this production which had had
great reviews.

The plot-line is that half a dozen boys at a state
school in the 1980s are preparing for entrance exams to
Oxford and Cambridge Universities. The task of tutoring
them falls to two markedly different teachers. The
avuncular 'Hector' and the young, ambitious 'Tom'.
Hector sees his role as helping educate his students
to be rounded human beings while all around him
the priorities are 'targets', 'league tables' and 'exams'
rather than people. Hector is a very likeable
character; Tom however is more in tune with the
cynical spirit of the age - and the immediate task
at hand. So far so good.

The plot started to come unglued for me when a second
storyline was introduced. Hector is caught touching the
genitals of one of his students. Somehow this act is
passed off as a minor indiscretion which the buffoon of
a headteacher blows out of all proportion by insisting
that Hector takes early retirement (rather than have him
face professional disgrace). The audience's sympathies
were being directed to Hector, who, as I said earlier, was
in every other respect an appealing character.

There was a serious issue here which the author
glossed over. The "elephant in the room" was the
apparent abuse of trust between a respected teacher and
his students and we were encouraged to laugh it off.

Of course the "boys" portrayed were in their late teens
so there is no question of a teacher interfering with
'minors'. And yet I felt uncomfortable with the side of
the storyline we were being steered to support.

The "boys" were too self confident of their sexual
identity for it to ring true of teenagers. The implication
is that - underneath all that diffidence and callowness-
young people are much more knowing and consenting
than they truly are. The fact that the students Hector
fondled became 'accessories after the fact' is neither
here nor there and anyway isn't that the psychological
strategy employed by most paedophiles?

Sorry Alan I was a fan but I'm not so sure now.

ps Do you think I've blown my chances of getting into
Cambridge? I guess I'll just have to settle for Oxford
instead!