How do I define History? It's just one F***ing thing after another.

So, my first post of the year. I had essays, I have an excuse for being absent, but I’m quite excited about today’s post.

Today I want to discuss one of my favourite films.

Yes, I know this is supposed to be a literature post, but hear me out. Because this film reminds me exactly what it is I adore about books and history, and how they intertwine. And this film is the stage-screen adaptation of Alan Bennett’s The History Boys. I’ll tell you that if I ever got around to writing up a bucket list, being in a production of The History Boys would be somewhere near the top. I don’t care about the all-male casting, this is the twenty-first century, I want to play one of the boys – they’re fascinating characters. Dakin and Posner and Akhtar and Scripps and Lockwood and Rudge and Crowther and Timms are brilliant. If my limited history in theatre has told me anything, it's that I'm not afraid to play a male character.

If anything, watch it for the cast, loads of whom you will recognise! James Corden, Dominic Cooper), the Late Richard Griffiths, Samuel Anderson, Francis De La Tour, Penelope Wilton, Russell Tovey, Steven Campbell-Moore and loads of other faces you’ll recognise.

I think The History Boys struck a chord with me when I saw it, because at the time when I discovered it I was writing my personal statement, just like the boys I was fighting for a place to study History at university, and this play told me exactly what it was I was feeling this innate love of books and history and learning that was what I wanted to describe but never had the words;

"The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - that you'd thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you've never met, maybe even someone long dead. And it's as if a hand has come out, and taken yours." – Hector

And to apply it to history it’s all about having those ‘gobbets’ (Quotes) ready, even if you don’t understand the quotes (As our dear Scripps says in the play ‘Most of the stuff poetry’s about hasn’t happened to us yet’), When you do finally come to understand the feelings, you’ll have the gobbets ready. Mr Hector teaches us in the play that he “would hate to turn out boys who, in later life, would claim to have a love of literature, or speak of the lure of language, and their love of words.” is rather eccentric General Studies classes are to make the boys more rounded individuals, he calls it ‘Sheer, calculated silliness.’

One of the things I love about this play is the idea of knowledge for knowledge’s sake. I pride myself in ‘useless’ knowledge, quotes and poems and random information that will never come up in exams or tests or probably even a pub quiz but it’s there and I can use it where I want, drop it into conversation or make doodles from it in my notebook. I can tell you the opening lines of dozens of books, I can name the horses of great military leaders throughout the years and I can tell you the name of the man who was Trotsky’s bodyguard during a failed assassination. This film teaches me that this sort of knowledge isn't entirely without purpose. I’m full of gobbets, prepared for anything the world throws at me. Some of them even come from this film, it’s rather quotable, and with Samuel Barnett’s stunning renditions of Bye Bye Blackbird, Bewitched Bothered and Bewildered and L’Accordiniste. But also the rather jolly chant;

Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye!
Cheerio; Here I go! One my way!
Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye!
Not a tear, but a cheer, make it gay!

(I’ll admit I've been singing this all week)

But the play is more than just about books or history, it’s about a clash of modern and old education, when the young Mr Irwin is brought in to polish the boys up for Oxbridge he is taken aback by their ability to sprout facts and poetry and having learned the endings to different films, knowledge to them is a game and they always have a gobbet ready to throw at everything he says, the boys are very different students under Irwin and Hector and when they share a class the boys freeze ‘We don’t know whose class we are, sir, Yours, or Mister Hector’s’.

It’s about learning about oneself, growing up, the boys are all very different: from Sporty Rudge who, when asked to define history, comes up with the marvelous quote I used for the title this week; to the outrageous Dakin who quickly manages to understand the game Mr Irwin is playing with them, he’s the leader of the group, smart and probably dangerous. They all come from different religious backgrounds too. Though, the fact they are grammar school candidates trying for Oxbridge does suggest an upper middle class background. All of them, despite this shared education, lead very different lives, shown to us in a horribly touching scene at the end, the boys become everything from tax lawyers to launderette owners, young Lockwood was killed by friendly fire just 28. 

A rather lovely line comes from young Posner, the most naïve of the group as he talks with the closeted Irwin;

Posner: Do you ever look at your life, Sir?
Irwin; I thought everyone did.
Posner: I'm a Jew, I'm small, I'm homosexual, and I live in Sheffield. I'm fucked.

Finally, the play is about failure, to a certain extent, and betrayal. Things don’t turn out the way they’re meant to, and the boys, though they adore Mr Hector, are having to hide the fact that he’s a sexual predator. Right at the end, all the boys get into Oxbridge but then, after giving Irwin a ride on his motorbike, Mr Hector is killed, at his funeral we listen to the headmaster telling them about Hector’s love of Literature and words, which we already know he would have hated. We learn then about the fates of the boys, Lockwood is dead, Scripps takes drugs…  I believe in the book poor Posner has a breakdown (in the film he becomes a teacher) that’s not how it was meant to end. And we are left with another of Hector’s gobbets to consider, about the purpose of education;

"Pass the parcel. That's sometimes all you can do. Take it, feel it and pass it on. Not for me, not for you, but for someone, somewhere, one day. Pass it on, boys. That's the game I want you to learn. Pass it on."

Oh, like all books I could write so much more on this, I absolutely adore this film, I could go into the ideas on homosexuality and the ideas of the mistelling of history and so much more. But no, I’ll leave it here. I may revisit the play once I have read it and seen the differences from the film.

Emily.