Did the West End’s History Boys Feel Like Old Times to Critics?

Ben Barnes and Orlando Wells in The History Boys

Mark Shenton in his Theatre.com Review: “Premiered at Britain’s National Theatre in May 2004, [The History Boys] has since become one of the most successful plays in the history of the South Bank—bouncing in and out of the repertoire for the past two years, going on two extensive national tours, as well as securing Tony Award-winning glory on Broadway and being made into both a hit radio play (now available on audio tape) and movie version, with the original cast. Now it is finally claiming its long overdue place in the West End, and what’s both striking and exciting about its arrival there is not just the joy of welcoming a group of old friends back who have previously made their ways so warmly into our lives, but that they can live on now just as fondly in new guises… Given the intimate, collective ensemble strength of the original company of The History Boys, it could have been slightly unnerving to watch the play inhabited by a new set of strangers, but the mark of a good play, of course, is its ability to adapt, change and even deepen with different performers. While Isla Blair may not have nailed the brittle, mordant humour that Frances de la Tour so memorably and perhaps inimitably brought to the role of Mrs. Lintott, Stephen Moore’s Hector steps into the large shadow cast by Richard Griffiths’ mountainous performance with a heartbreaking vulnerability as a teacher whose unconventional classes—and even more unconventional trips on the back of his motorbike—provides his students a different kind of learning altogether… Like its students, the play is also intellectually inquisitive and physically agile, leaping around with thoughts and bounding around with ideas. The youthful cast of students—including Ben Barnes as a sexually provocative Dakin, Philip Correia’s slouchingly self-aware Rudge and Steven Webb’s vulnerable gay Posner—bring a boundless energy to it, too. They keep this play as blissfully buoyant as it is playful and poignant.”

Benedict Nightingale of The London Times: “There are plays one forgets in three days—yes, I'm talking about, oh, um, er, thingamajig—and plays that lodge so firmly in the mind that it's dangerous to revisit them. It's nearly three years since Alan Bennett's The History Boys started the journey that took it from triumph at the National to almost greater success on Broadway—and its revival in the West End, though far from bad, left me nostalgic for Richard Griffiths, Frances de la Tour and a cast that had me thinking and laughing, laughing and thinking, all at the same time… Bennett somewhat sentimentalises Hector, the beleaguered teacher who believes that his task is to broaden minds and declares that ‘exams are the enemy of education, which is not to say that I don't also think that education is the enemy of education.’ But here's where Griffiths was so strong, bringing astringency and a sly sense of mischief to the old-fashioned humanist. Stephen Moore, who now takes the role, ends up finding a touching vulnerability and pain in the character, but tries too hard at first to be likeable and at times seems so ingratiating that any sharp 17-year-old (and almost all his pupils are just that) would certainly fart in his general direction… But does the slight lack of fizz that was apparent on opening night make the play less essential viewing? Not at all.”

Steven Webb and Stephen Moore in The History Boys

Michael Billington of The Guardian: “Theatrical takeovers can be just as exciting as those in the City. Watching a brand-new cast bring Alan Bennett's celebrated play into the West End, after a U.K. tour, gives one a startlingly fresh perspective. We all know this is a play about teaching, history and cultural shifts in English life. What I hadn't grasped, until now, is that it is also a celebration of the diffident charm of the bourgeoisie. Recasting, in Simon Cox's version of Nicholas Hytner's original production, makes a huge difference. Richard Griffiths brought his own brand of eccentric individualism to Hector, the inspirational teacher who believes that exams are the enemy of education. In contrast, Stephen Moore, nattily clad in bow tie and suede shoes, invests Hector with a dapper solitariness. This is a man who has spent all his life, sexually and academically, on the margins, and who loves Hardy and Larkin for their ‘diffidence or shyness.’ This makes it overpoweringly moving when Hector finally breaks down in front of his class: I was reminded of a similarly shattering scene in the 1951 film of Rattigan's The Browning Version. Bennett contrasts Hector with Irwin, the sixth-form teacher and future TV historian who believes that the way to success lies in ostentatious originality. In Orlando Wells's immensely subtle performance, Irwin is more like Hector than he realises. Bold as he may be in his historical revisionism, Wells' tall, boyish Irwin is paralysed by shyness about his sexuality. There's a moment, just after he has finally succumbed to the overtures of the class flirt, Dakin, when Wells' features are suffused with a joy that tells you everything you need to know about his banked-up feelings. The whole play, I suddenly realised, revolves around a peculiarly English diffidence.”

Paul Taylor of The Independent: “One measure of the play’s huge success (a much-extended run at the National, triumph in New York and a regional English tour) is that it is only now, some two and a half years after the premiere of Nick Hytner’s excellent production, that The History Boys has embarked on a recast West End transfer. Here, Hector is played by Stephen Moore, who cuts a trim, rather effete figure. He gives a sensitive and cumulatively very affecting performance, but he’s not forceful or angry enough in his one-man awkward-squad routine, and you don’t feel the strength of his emotional need to be remembered as a ‘character’ by the boys. He’s best at the quiet moments—spellbinding in the superb sequence in which Hector expounds on a Hardy poem to the troubled, gay Posner, revealing the depth of his own loneliness and stoicism, and transmitting subtle empathy to a pupil who looks likely to share such a fate. High-voiced, sad-faced and poignantly pert, Steven Webb is both amusing and moving as Posner… As Dakin, the sexy object of his affections, Ben Barnes is handsome and engaging but rather bland and one-note in his cockiness. Missing is the sense of saturnine insinuation and danger with which Dominic Cooper (who originated the role) toyed with the affections of his fellow-pupil and of Irwin (a nicely peaky and repressed Orlando Wells).”