The History Boys

I'd been wondering if I should watch The History Boys for some time, any reluctance caused by the trailers which suggested that it was Stand and Deliver in an idyllic Yorkshire setting. A friend told me I really should see it, so I did. Stand and Deliver it sure ain't. It's probably the most cynical exercise in... I have no idea in what. Pandering to everything bad about the English. Where the hell do I start?

It's set in 1983. It has to be. In 1985 British teachers started a campaign of strikes that ended in 1987 with the Teachers' Pay and Conditions Act. In 1986 the two-tier syllabuses and examinations at sixteen – GCE's for brighter pupil's and CSE's for the rest – were replaced with a two-tier examination called the GCSE based on a common syllabus. In 1985, Britain was the only country in the world that taught elementary calculus to under-sixteens: after the GCSE, it became possible to get an A-level without knowing the derivative of sin(x). 1983 is British education Before The Fall. It's Britain before the Fall of the 1984/5 Miner's Strike, after which the Left had no moral centre.

The History Boys themselves have astounding confidence, memories like fly-paper, the concentration of astronauts and a security about their sexual identity that means they no hang-ups whatsoever about the well-meaning but gently gay Fat Teacher feeling them up as he gives them rides home on his motorbike, despite the fact that only one of them has a girlfriend (the school secretary, this being the only school in the world where the secretary isn't about a hundred years old.) They are what big, well-financed sixth-formers look like from the outside – but not on the inside. They are introduced to us as the best the school has ever had.

The History Boys says it's about education, the idealism of the Richard Griffiths character versus the cynical tricks of the Stephen Campbell Moore character. Griffiths will educate them – as well as make them learn poetry by heart (they quote Stevie Smith – Stevie Smith!) and the endings of camp films and plays by heart – but Moore and his tricks will get them into Oxbridge. It says it's a feel-good movie, but a feel-good movie has to have something at stake for our heroes, and there is no chance in hell these History Boys are going to fail. Not one. They have no weaknesses, their families don't exist and the whole thing takes place in an idyllic valley somewhere near Sheffield. Sheffield was one of the most prosperous town in the country, but by 1983 it was closed for business. The Full Monty was set in Sheffield in 1972 and it didn't get any better afterwards.

My friend gets very cross with me when I criticise a film for being “unrealistic”. He thinks I mean that the clothes were wrong or that the bus was the wrong type. I can live with that. Except when the story depends on it. Teenage boys are not relaxed about sixty-year old teachers groping them and they would not have the relationship they have with the character if he did – but then, if they did, and he didn't, the whole ending would disappear in smoke. And that's what the whole thing is – a smoke-and-mirrors magic trick written for people who want to be deceived. The lie is that it's all painless: that excellent A-level results (especially in 1983) could be gained while learning the ending of Brief Encounter, whereas that much work leaves people changed for life. It was A-levels and the university interviews that was the rite-of-passage. University and a degree was the reward for A-levels well done. The myth of pain-free life. Any time you can put that in a movie, you will find a willing audience in Britain.

If I'd been given the script? Well, the Sexually Confident One would have had three girlfriends in the course of the film. His mate would have been pining for some unattainable beauty and caught having a shag with an all-too-attainable one. No homosexuality and the Campbell Moore character would have gone to Jesus College, Oxford. We would have seen how good Rudge was at Rugby – that would have been my opening scene. We would have seen a Saturday afternoon in Sheffield so we understood why they wanted to leave. If they really cared about history, they would know where the best courses for their periods were – that discussion would have been in there and I would have sub-contracted it to a History teacher at a top public school. We would understand why they want to go to Oxford or Cambridge – contacts, CV, Footlights (one of them is a demon pianist and the other sings), whatever. Why were they interested in History? A few hi-jinks involving drink, soft drugs and someone else's girlfriend. Edited highlights of a real Oxbridge interview. But mostly we have to care that they get in – and not just because, well, they would, wouldn't they, because how could you not want to go there? Each one of them has to have a failing they need to overcome if they are to get in, and since there's eight of them that's enough story for anyone. And that's why you're going to care – because you want them to overcome their faults. Oh, and one little thing: at some point we the viewer get to see how much a conscientious A-level and Oxbridge History student has to read. The sheer pile of books, lingered over for one minute of it and we're sold on these guys being serious.