The History Boys

He was a good man, but I do not think there is time for his kind of teaching any more.

Alan Bennett's modern classic The History Boys will enjoy a new season at Cromwell Road Theatre, South Yarra. The multi-award winning play follows an unruly bunch of bright and brash sixth-form boys from a northern grammar school in the Thatcherite eighties. The boys are - naturally - in pursuit of sex, sport, spirituality... and a coveted place at one of England's finest universities.

Directed by Bryce Ives (Call Girl the Musical at Chapel off Chapel and You're a Good Man Charlie Brown at Cromwell Road), this production considers the value and meaning of education in an intensely moving, funny and thought-provoking experience. The play is a celebration of the joys of language, intellectual exploration and inspirational educators.

The school gives them an education. I give them the wherewithal to resist it. Examine a boy and he is tamed already. Only examine him and you can tax him, empanel him, enlist him, interrogate him and put him in prison. You have only to grade him and you have got him.