Shock tactics
Lloyd Evans The History Boys Wyndhams The Rocky Horror Show Comedy Until last week I was the only person on the planet not to have seen The History Boys. I now rejoin the human race in a state of wonder. Such a whopping hit, such flimsy materials. The setting happens to be familiar to me, a state school in the 1980s where a group of smart alecs are preparing to take Oxbridge. All Alan Bennett's failings and strengths are on view here. The perfunctory storyline is made up of a few broad gestures culminating in a not-terribly-surprising surprise ending. The cast consists of straight characters who are stereotypes and gay characters who are stereotypes with knobs on. The rest is rhetoric, atmosphere and the occasional excellent joke.
Archaeology is popular because it's the nearest history gets to shopping.' Bennett relies heavily on shock tactics to get laughs. A dignified high-status male says 1***', a facile ploy which is repeated several times, with, of course, diminishing results. Keen to top 'f***', Bennett makes a dignified high-status female say c***'. It's hardly Voltaire.
His teenage boys are as superficially drawn as the adults. There's the fat jolly one (he's fat and jolly), the hulking thick one (he's hulking and thick), the Christian one (he talks about God), the Asian one (doesn't say a lot) and the black one (barely a peep). All the boys are adorable and sublimely gifted. They recite poetry, dispute metaphysics, play duets at the piano, sing four-part harmonies and improvise comic playlets in fluent French. Ah, yes, I remember it well.
Bennett's attention focuses on the heterosexual heart-throb, Dakin, and the gay drip, Posner, who's also Jewish, for some reason. Posner fancies Dakin but Dakin is busy having a crack at the headmaster's secretary. And after seducing her he relates the experience to his pals using metaphors drawn from the first world war. Spot-on, Alan. That's just how we talked about losing our virginity in the 1980s. Ypres, Mons and the drive for Berlin, those were our first points of reference.
The heart of the play lies with two gay teachers whose methods are held up for comparison. Irwin, a diligent young martinet, excels at getting boys into Oxbridge. Hector, an ageing poet, despises exams and cherishes learning for learning's sake. He's also a motorcyclist. After a hard day in the classroom quoting Auden and Houseman he selects a random scholar to take home on his bike and molests the lad while zigzagging along the Yorkshire A-roads. Clearly he's an asset to any school: sensitive, inspirational — and a trained stuntman. How do Hector's proclivities go down with the boys? Oh, it's just one of those things, like his tweed jacket, barely worthy of comment.
Bennett's world is too steeped in honey for him to contemplate the homophobic bullying that would engulf any pupil who openly participated in gay sex with a teacher in the 1980s. The fairytale atmosphere even embraces a bizarre sexual volte-face in the final act. Dakin, who is by now the boyfriend of the school secretary, gains a scholarship to Oxford and, as a thank-you present, offers to perform oral sex on Sir. Why? Well, he's rather euphoric about it all, you see, and it's a lot friendlier than giving him an apple. Imagine if Dakin won the Nobel Prize. The ceremony would be unbroadcastable.
I suspect the play's popularity owes itself to its wilful escapism and to the collective delusion of audiences who come away vowing that they, too, had a teacher like Hector, who encouraged them to love books, cultivate their minds, free their imaginations and fail their exams. At 150 minutes, it may be a slog but the text is undoubtedly a classic, i.e., a play that pulls in large crowds who can't stop coughing throughout the second half.
More escapism at the latest Rocky Horror Show. Things started badly with a safety announcement ordering us not to hold up lighters or 'throw any items'. That's like banning Hallelujah from a born-again christening. All revivals of Rocky Horror (b. 1973) inspire strange fears. What if it's worse than the film? What if it's not as good as the last time you saw it? What if the dread chill of middleage has crept into its bones after all these years? A good Frank 'n' Furter is essential and David Bedella is utterly captivating, a louche, twinkly-eyed swaggering star with the physique of a gymnast and an unnervingly wide Joan Collins smile. The show goes on tour from February. But, please, don't throw things, OK? This is Rocky Horror. It's not supposed to be fun.
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