In 2004, Alan Bennett’s The History Boys was met with universal acclaim, Britain’s Daily Telegraph lauding it a play of ‘depth and dazzle’. The original cast and director teamed up once more to create The History Boys, a film that is as wildly entertaining as it is confrontational and surprisingly educational. Bennett has set his lesson in a boy’s grammar school where eight bright students are being polished for a once-in- a-lifetime stab at Oxford. What could, with lesser talent, become another droll exercise of student-teacher relationships is in Bennett’s gifted hands, pure gold - a glittering entertainment that assaults mind, heart and spirit.

Led by youthful Irwin and endearing old Hector (an outstanding Richard Griffiths), the boys are tutored for the exam. Friendships blossom and alliances forged in a blisteringly hilarious, deliciously witty, frequently brutal coming of age tale – as much for the tutors as for their students. Things get shaky when Hector is caught feeling up one of the boys, yet it’s not as shocking a plot-turn as one might think. Bennett doesn’t mince words and unapologetic homosexuality is a core subject in his class. Two of the lads openly fancy another who in turn half-fancies his new tutor (only half, as this George Michael wannabe also has his loins set on the principal’s buxom assistant).

At first, The History Boys seems an uncoordinated series of funny and touching scenes - rather like school, and perhaps history itself. But Bennett is wise to his words and uses this apparent discord to reflect on how meaning and pattern is imposed on random events. Or as one student eloquently puts it, “History is just one fucking thing after another.” Soaring on verbal glee, Hytner's taught direction whisks an impeccable cast to a bittersweet ending that confirms Bennett as one of our great writers, and The History Boys one of his great works.

// COLIN FRASER