Play review – “History Boys” by Alan Bennett

Wonderful play about a class of ultra smart students and their teacher – and about lots more. Love, lust, monastic existences, how history is used, the role of education, shaping minds, what impact it has. Most of the PR went to the lead teacher Hector which is the showiest part but perhaps even more depth is the other younger teacher, the one who winds up a media celebrity in a wheelchair (I related to the monastic lifestyle stuff). It’s got power, the students defy clichés – smart, pratty, hungry for love. Good story stuff, too – the mystery of how the young teacher wound up in a wheelchair, what happened to the students later in life. The best new play I’ve read in ages.