History Boys, The

USA 2006, 107 minutes
Dir. Nicholas Hytner
English
Rating: [M]
Genres: Drama, Comedy / LGBT

Topics: Stageplay, Rites-of-passage, Period 1980s.

Feat. Richard Griffiths, Stephen Campbell Moore, Samuel Anderson, James Corden, Frances de la Tour, Andrew Knott, Dominic Cooper

Aroview: Alan Bennett's hit stageplay about the precocious lads and frustrated teachers at a well-bred English boarding school is transposed directly to the screen with the original touring cast and director.

So faithful to the stage version it barely qualifies as an 'adaptation', its over-rehearsed cast tend to 'project out' from the stage rather than truly interact with each other, and as a result sound less like actual characters than mouthpieces for the voice of a skilled playwright. Despite being set in the 1980's, this openly flirts with homosexual themes in a very post-modern way, and is contentious to say the least on the subject of 'inappropriate touching'.