English Literature / Drama GCSE: Plot Overview: The History Boys by Alan Bennett

MRS LINTOTT:Their A-levels are very good.

HEADMASTER:Their A-levels are VERY good.

NARRATOR:'Your school days, love them or loathe them, you never forget them.'

HEADMASTER:I'm thinking, league tables, open scholarships, reports to the governor.

NARRATOR:'At one northern school, things are changing. The headteacher has a plan…'

HEADMASTER:When did we last have anyone in history at Oxford and Cambridge.

NARRATOR:'to get eight exceptional history students into Oxbridge. Welcome to the plot of The History Boys.'

HEADMASTER:The problem is, for Oxbridge, the boys need to show edge, flair but I've got Mrs. Lintott, who's factually tip top

HEADMASTER:and Hector, unpredictable, unquantifiable Hector.

HECTOR:I count examinations, even for Oxford and Cambridge as the enemy of education.

HEADMASTER:Hector has passion, commitment but not all curriculum directed, not curriculum directed at all. If you go into one of his lessons, you'll see the kids performing Brief Encounter, for heaven's sake.

HEADMASTER:We need a new recruit. Someone who can get results.

NARRATOR:'The headteacher brings in Irwin, a supply teacher who claims to be newly graduated from Oxford.

HEADMASTER:Get me scholarships Irwin. Pull us up the table.

IRWIN:Dull, dull, abysmally dull, a triumph. The dullest of the lot.

NARRATOR:'Irwin's teaching, is unashamedly left-field.'

IRWIN:If you want to learn about Stalin, study Henry VIII. If you want to learn about Mrs. Thatcher, study Henry VIII.

IRWIN:The wrong end of the stick, is the right one. A question, has a front door and a back door. Go in the back or better still, the side.

NARRATOR:'He's meretricious, showy and falsely attractive.'

IRWIN:History nowadays, is not a matter of conviction it's a performance. It's entertainment. And if it isn't, make it so.

RUDGE:Mr. Irwin wants us to surprise the examiner. Tap all areas of our knowledge.

RUDGE:Even said the Carry On films might be good to talk about.

RUDGE:Basically, he wants us to trot out all the stuff Hector's made us learn.

NARRATOR:'But the students are reluctant.'

SCRIPPS:Timms put it well. Hector's stuff's not for the exam it's to make us more rounded human beings.

TIMMS:Literature is medicine, wisdom, elastoplast, everything!

HECTOR:What Irwin is asking is ghastly. These gobbets of learning, as he calls them, aren't for exams they've been learned by heart.

HECTOR:And that is where they belong. And like the other components of the heart. Not to be defiled by being trotted out to order.

NARRATOR:'But Irwin disagrees and feels the boys aren't showing their true potential.'

IRWIN:It's all about holding back, not divulging, something up their sleeve.

HEADMASTER:So everything comes to a head the day I spot Hector giving a lift to one of the students on his motorbike, and he was-- well he was groping him.

HECTOR:Nothing happened.

HEADMASTER:A hand on a boy's genitals at 50mph and you call it nothing!

HECTOR:The transmission of knowledge, is in itself, an erotic act.

HEADMASTER:So what can you do?

HEADMASTER:I told him that he could take early retirement at the end of term but he'd have to share lessons with Irwin.

NARRATOR:'The two teaching styles sit together uncomfortably. Some of the boys are already struggling with Irwin's approach.'

SCRIPPS:It's this making it up I can't get used to. Arguing for effect, not believing what you're saying. That's not history, that's journalism.

NARRATOR:'Irwin encourages the flashy flaunting of knowledge.'

HECTOR:It's not good. It's flip. It's glib.

HECTOR:It's journalism.

NARRATOR:'Whereas thoughtful Hector finds Irwin's approach unacceptable. Too little of the heart but by the end of the lesson, Irwin's methods are on top.'

HECTOR:Parrots.

HECTOR:I thought I was lining their minds with some sort of literary insulation. Proof against the primacy of fact. Instead, back come my words like a speak-your-weight machine.

IRWIN:And so, the exams come, and they go

IRWIN:and we're waiting anxiously for the results.

HEADMASTER:Splendid news,

HEADMASTER:Posner a scholarship, Dakin an exhibition and places for everyone else. It's more than one could have ever hoped for.

HEADMASTER:Irwin, you are to be congratulated.

HEADMASTER:Remarkable achievement.

NARRATOR:'But at least one teacher doesn't share the joy. Hector feels the boys haven't been properly educated.'

HECTOR:Magnificently unprepared for the long littleness of life.

NARRATOR:'And he concludes his teaching career worn-down and disillusioned.

DAKIN:So, I'm a school leaver now

DAKIN:and I can talk to the teachers as an adult, not as a student

DAKIN:and I find out that Irwin has been distorting the truth of his own personal history.

IRWIN:I never got in.

IRWIN:I was at Bristol.

IRWIN:I did go to Oxford but it was just to do a teaching diploma. Does that make a difference?

DAKIN:To what? To me?

DAKIN:At least you lied

DAKIN:and lying's good isn't it? We've established that.

DAKIN:I think it's time I gave my teacher an education…

DAKIN:If you know what I mean.

IRWIN:I didn't know you were that way inclined.

DAKIN:I'm not but it's the end of term,

DAKIN:I've just got into Oxford, thought I might push the boat out.

NARRATOR:'Having lined up an education for his former teacher, Dakin then turns his attention to his former headmaster.'

DAKIN:I asked him what the difference was between Hector touching us up on the bike and him trying to feel up Fiona.

NARRATOR:'Armed with the knowledge of the headmaster's harassment Dakin blackmails him into reinstating Hector.'

HEADMASTER:Oww, take somebody else. Take–

NARRATOR:'The play ends with Hector giving a colleague a fateful lift on his motorbike.'

HEADMASTER:Take Irwin.

HECTOR:Irwin?!

IRWIN:Sure, why not?

NARRATOR:'The ride ends in accidental tragedy. Hector is killed, Irwin, left in a wheelchair and no one's really sure what happened on that fateful day.'

SCRIPPS:I think that since Irwin had never been on the back of a bike before going round the corner, he leaned out instead of in and so unbalanced Hector.

SCRIPPS:Appropriate, isn't it? Trust Irwin to lean the opposite way to everyone else.