THE HISTORY BOYS
Director Nicholas Hytner and Richard Griffiths talk about bringing the hit play from the stage to the screen.


“The History Boys”
by Special Correspondent Leslie (Hoban) Blake

November 21, 2006

“The London run served as the longest rehearsal period ever for a film,” jokes Olivier, TONY and Drama Desk winning director Nicholas Hytner about his film version of “The History Boys” shot during the short hiatus between its London and New York stage runs and opening on Nov. 21st. What's really astonishing is that the film’s cast is the same one that began on stage two and a half years ago at Britain’s National Theatre (where Hytner is the Artistic Director) and then played on Broadway in April, 2005 - “something that never happens” cast members Richard Griffiths and Frances De La Tour agree.

“Yes,” cracks Griffiths expansively, “It’s the only play with pension rights. Actually the boys [the eight younger actors] practically grew up during the two and half years they’ve been with THB.” During that time the play also swept the theater awards on both continents winning Oliviers and TONYs for Best Play, Best Director and Best Actor.

THB revolves around eight young British school mates – the History Boys of the title –who achieve high grades under the tutelage of the school’s regular staff including Hector, an effete, grossly overweight but highly effective teacher. Now, a new teacher is hired whose job is solely to teach them how to get into Oxford and Cambridge (the equivalent of making it to Yale or Harvard out of an inner city high school). The film shows both the impact of the two different teaching styles on the personal as well as the academic lives of the boys and the teachers, while revealing Hector’s fatal flaw.

Griffiths, who co-stars as Hector, is a Shakespearean stage veteran, probably best known worldwide as Harry Potter’s Uncle Vernon. Of Hector who often ‘gropes’ the boys who ride on the back of his motor scooter, Griffiths - his bright blue eyes crinkling slyly - says, “I’d put old Hector in a tree shreddeIn Japan, where all children are precious, any five year old can ask any adult for help and there are no incidences of pedophilia. Oh, I don’t think Hector would ever actually DO anything, he’s a timid man really, but it’s just the idea!”

“But," De La Tour interjects, "What a teacher he is! “My character [Mrs. Lintott, the only female History teacher] is deeply afraid that becasue he’s misbehaved, we’ll lose his kind of teaching. He teaches the boys to love learning for its own sake and not just for what it can get them in terms of college or a job.” Asked about the differences between London and Broadway audiences, Griffiths gives props to New York. “We were a bit worried about the fact that the play is so English, but Broadway audiences are faster, smarter and even more demanding than the Brits.”

As for the transition from stage to the screen De La Tour says, “I was surprised at how smooth it was. I mean of course everything was slightly different and we spent six weeks with no money and there was some different dialog, but by then we all knew who we were. The acting is the same because you’re just speaking the truth. The main difference is sometimes you’ll be in this wordless close-up and you’ll remember a speech in your head but the dialog’s gone from the scene!”

“The History Boys,” is the second successful stage-to-screen transfer from the team of director Nicholas Hytner and writer Alan Bennett. Their earlier joint effort, “The Madness of King George,”won Oscar nods for Bennett as well as for his two stars, Helen Mirren and the late Nigel Hawthorne. Opening up a play to film is different every time, notes Hytner. “It’s about what each particular film needs. In the MofKG, the King’s world is all of England so even though it’s a personal story, it’s really set against that larger back-drop. The school in THB is a closed world.”

“On stage,” Hytner explains, “We used video when we had to leave the classroom while on film we’d simply get on the motorbike or go to Oxford. But the film is about getting behind the character’s eyes and under their skin. Of course there are changes [no spoilers here], not the least of which is that the play had a flash forward format, which would have been gratuitous on screen. The play’s more of a mystery while the film just tells the story. You learn everything as the boys are learning it.”

THE HISTORY BOYS opens on November 21, 2006