The Only Education Worth Having

When I picked up my tickets to see the WSAF production of The History Boys, I’ll be honest: I was skeptical. It’s my favourite play, which I have now seen three times, not to mention how many times I’ve watched the film.

I went apathetic. But I left smiling.

After having seen two professional productions, the production still managed to make me laugh at every line I already knew off by heart, but also successfully re-worked the play and introduced elements that I wasn’t expecting. A thoroughly enjoyable performance that even my companions, two history students not as ‘into’ theatre as I, also absolutely loved.

The play depicts a group of 1980s sixth formers preparing for their Oxbridge interviews and exams – something obviously fairly familiar to most of us here at Warwick – and it’s the Warwick student perspective that the team picked up on.

I won’t mention the unexpectedly smashed ashtray.

Or shall I? Because, actually, the beauty of this production was that it wasn’t trying to compete with the professional production. The team knew their audience, and instead they offered up a play for Warwick students. In my opinion, this is why it worked so well; dropping in derogatory Coventry references and lines such as “Go to Warwick and be happy”.

The mistakes, the unexpected surprises, the lines occasionally spoken over each other (Caryl Churchill would have loved it) and the re-written lines all made the play what it was. You felt like you were watching an original creation, not a memorised script. It’s what theatre, especially student theatre, is about – adapting to the context and making it relevant to your audience. In this, it truly succeeded.

The casting was bang on – David Levesley was born to play the loveable Hector (though how complimentary it is to say someone was made to play a kiddy fiddler I’m not sure… but trust me: it is a compliment). He dramatised the character in a much more dynamic way than an older actor would have done, breathed a new life into a character I thought I knew so well. Stewart Clarke embodied Dakin, a perfect fit, even down to the fact that he looks remarkably like the original actor, Dominic Cooper.

Also of note were Alistair Hill’s Posner, Lily Brewer’s Lintott and Joseph Henshaw’s Felix. Although Brewer took time to establish her character, once awarded substantial dialogue she really did go for it (which led to the smashed ashtray incident after a misplaced hand on a table emphatically swept into the air to make a point, and took the ashtray with it… ironically when she was making a speech about ‘going over the top’).

Guardian critic Michael Billington called the play a “masterpiece” when it was first performed. That it is, and I can proudly say that the student dramatists here at Warwick did justice to that masterpiece. No easy task when you are set the challenges of an entire scene in French and for young men to perform Edith Piaf and Gracie Fields. The French scene is one of the most difficult I’ve ever come across: performing an entire scene in French to an audience whose French may be sketchy at best, and performing it in a way that ensures the audience still knows what’s going on takes a hell of a lot of talent.

You may have gotten the impression by now that I enjoyed the play and that I thought the History Boys team did a great job. So I shall end by urging you to take advantage of the student theatre here at Warwick. It saddens me that it’s taken me into my second year here to realise what talented people we have in our drama societies. Don’t make the same mistake I have. Take the time to go and watch one of our many student plays next term; there really is something to suit everyone. And I promise you: you will be rewarded.

“Pass the parcel,” says Hector aptly at the play’s finale. “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.”