The History Boys


The History Boys is a play by British playwright Alan Bennett. The play premiered at the Royal National Theatre in London on 18 May 2004. Its Broadway debut was on 23 April 2006 at the Broadhurst Theatre where 185 performances were staged before it closed on 1 October 2006.
The play won [|multiple awards], including the 2005 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play and the 2006 Tony Award for Best Play.

Plot

The play opens in Cutlers' Grammar School, Sheffield, a fictional boys' grammar school in the north of England. Set in the early 1980s, the play follows a group of history pupils preparing for the Oxford and Cambridge entrance examinations under the guidance of three teachers with contrasting styles.
Hector, an eccentric teacher, delights in knowledge for its own sake but his ambitious headmaster wants the school to move up the academic league table and hires Irwin, a supply teacher, to introduce a rather more cynical and ruthless style of teaching. Hector is discovered sexually fondling a boy and later Irwin's latent homosexual inclinations emerge.
The character of Hector was based on the schoolmaster and author Frank McEachran.

Characters

Irwin is said to be modelled after Niall Ferguson.
The play includes several non-speaking roles:

Royal National Theatre

The play opened at the Lyttelton Theatre in London on 18 May 2004, directed by Nicholas Hytner. It played to sell-out audiences and its limited run was frequently extended. Richard Griffiths, James Corden, Dominic Cooper, Russell Tovey, Sacha Dhawan, Samuel Barnett and Andrew Knott were among the original cast. On 24 November 2005, the same production was revived once again at the Lyttelton Theatre where it played another successful run. Future Doctor Who actor Matt Smith took on the role of Lockwood in the November revision of the cast. The original cast reunited in the final week in February 2006.

International tour

Following closing in London, the National Theatre production toured to Hong Kong in February 2006 and featured in the 2006 New Zealand International Arts Festival held in Wellington before playing at the Sydney Theatre in Sydney, Australia from 4 March to 8 April 2006. At each venue, the play was presented to sell-out audiences with the original London cast, including Richard Griffiths; however, Frances de la Tour and Clive Merrison were replaced by Maggie Steed and Malcolm Sinclair until the Broadway season.

Broadway

The American premiere of the play took place on 23 April 2006 when the same National production opened on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theatre. Originally scheduled to run through 2 September 2006, the run was extended through to 8 October 2006 following huge public demand after the show won the Tony, New York Critics Circle and other American theatrical awards.

West End

Following its Broadway triumph and second UK tour, the play opened at London's Wyndham's Theatre on 2 January 2007, following previews from 20 December 2006. The production closed on 14 April 2007. A further West End run of the play opened once again at the Wyndham's Theatre on 20 December 2007 running through 26 April 2008.

Tours in the UK and Ireland

The first national tour of the production opened in 2005, continuing to play nine regional venues. A second Britain wide tour began on 31 August 2006 at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, touring to eight further venues. The third tour launched on 6 September 2007 at the Theatre Royal, Plymouth, before continuing to Truro, Cheltenham, Bath, Dublin, Blackpool, Leeds, Cambridge and Eastbourne, culminating in Newcastle on 10 November 2007.

Royal National Theatre casts

A majority of the original cast reunited on 2 November 2013 for the National Theatre 50th Anniversary special and performed the French lesson scene, with Philip Correia taking over for Russell Tovey, Marc Elliott performing as Akthar, original Akthar actor Sacha Dhawan as Posner and playwright Alan Bennett taking over as Hector from Richard Griffiths, who had died in 2013.

West Yorkshire Playhouse / Theatre Royal Bath tour

A fourth national tour co-produced by the West Yorkshire Playhouse and Theatre Royal Bath commenced in early 2010. This was a new production not produced by the National Theatre and directed by Christopher Luscombe. The cast were as follows:
After a successful run the West Yorkshire Playhouse/Bath Theatre Royal production was revived for 2011 with the following cast:
In October 2006 a film adaptation of the play was released in the United States, and later in November 2006 in Britain. The film, also titled The History Boys, was directed by Nicholas Hytner and featured the original stage cast.

Awards and nominations

Original London production

Original Broadway production