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The History Boys review: New History Boys could learn a lesson from the past, writes GEORGINA BROWN
GEORGINA BROWN: It's 20 years since Alan Bennett's The History Boys premiered and Nicholas Hytner's high-spirited, hilarious staging made stars of a new generation of youngsters.
It's 20 years since Alan Bennett's The History Boys premiered at the National Theatre and Nicholas Hytner's high-spirited, hilarious staging made stars of a new generation of youngsters: James Corden, Dominic Cooper, Russell Tovey, Samuel Barnett and Jamie Parker, playing a bunch of bright sixth-formers. Alas, Simon Rouse's Hector lacks the charisma necessary to explain why his boys willingly submit to having their heads filled with the poetry of Auden, Larkin, Hardy and Shakespeare (learned 'by heart', by which he means with real love rather than by rote) and why the prettier pupils put up with his groping, while riding pillion on his motorbike. It's back in a slack, sluggish, witless revival which merely serves to highlight that comedies depending on breaking the theatrical illusion - with wobbly scenery, ludicrous accents, furniture and props arriving late, plus endless miming of hats and coats blown horizontal by a gale - have seen better days.
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