The History Boys (13 page)

Irwin
I'm not in politics. Who's in politics? I'm in government.

Mrs Lintott
Well you're not in monastic history, that's for sure. Hector would have been surprised and gratified too, to find himself regularly recalled in the
Old Boys'
Letter
few of them can otherwise be bothered to read.

Still, of all Hector's boys, there is only one who truly took everything to heart, remembers everything he was ever taught … the songs, the poems, the sayings, the endings; the words of Hector never forgotten.

Posner looks at boys on either side before putting his
hand up
.

He lives alone in a cottage he has renovated himself, has an allotment and periodic breakdowns.

He haunts the local library and keeps a scrapbook of the achievements of his one-time classmates and has a host of friends … though only on the internet, and none in his right name or even gender. He has long since stopped asking himself where it went wrong.

Hector
Finish, good lady, the bright day is done and we are for the dark.

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

Scripps
No. Love apart, it is the only education worth having.

Hector
Pass the parcel.

That's sometimes all you can do.

Take it, feel it and pass it on.

Not for me, not for you, but for someone, somewhere, one day.

Pass it on, boys.

That's the game I wanted you to learn.

Pass it on.

End
.

My debt to Nicholas Hytner is, as always, profound: he encouraged me to finish the play and he put it into production well before he had a viable text. The cast, too, were both a joy and a help. I cannot remember rehearsals that I have enjoyed more since my last school play nearly forty years ago. It's a blessing that not many writers know what a good time you can have doing plays, or more people would be writing them.

I would also like to thank R. W. Johnson for permission to quote from his article in the
London Review of
Books
and Professor George Steiner for letting me put some of his words into the mouth of Hector. I read
Letters of the Masters
after I'd written the play and it was a great encouragement

Thank you, too, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, the Pet Shop Boys, who allowed Rudge in the play to do his version of one of their songs, ‘It's a Sin' (I think their reputation is intact). There are many other quotations in the play, some of them buried and unattributed.

‘Epitaphs of War, 1914–1918: Common Form', by Rudyard Kipling, is used by permission of A. P. Watt Ltd on behalf of The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty; ‘Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now' and ‘On Wenlock Edge the Wood's in Trouble', by A. E. Housman, by permission of The Society of Authors as the Literary Representative of the Estate of A. E. Housman; ‘MCMXIV', by Philip Larkin, by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd; ‘Mr Eliot's Sunday Morning Service', by T. S. Eliot, by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd; ‘and Voices against England in the Night', by Stevie Smith, by permission of the Estate
of James MacGibbon. Words and music for ‘It's A Sin' by Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe © 1987 Cage Music Ltd, Sony/ATV Music Publishing (UK) Ltd. The extract from
Brief Encounter
is used by courtesy of Carlton International. We have been unable to trace UK copyright owners for permission to use the extracts from
Now Voyager
and
The
Seventh Veil
, but will be happy to make these acknowledgements, and any others inadvertently overlooked, in future editions.

Alan Bennett first appeared on the stage in 1960 as one of the authors and performers of the revue
Beyond the Fringe
. His stage plays include
Forty Years On, Getting On, Habeas Corpus, The Old Country
and
The Lady in the Van
, and he has written many television plays, notably
A Day Out, Sunset Across the Bay, A Woman of No Importance
and the series of monologues
Talking Heads
. An adaptation of his television play,
An Englishman Abroad
, was paired with
A Question of Attribution
in the double-bill
Single Spies
, first produced at the National Theatre in 1988. This was followed in 1990 by his adaptation of
The Wind in the Willows
and in 1991 by
The Madness of George III
.

The History Boys
won the
Evening Standard
and Critics' Circle awards for Best Play, The Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play, and The South Bank Award. Alan Bennett's latest collection of prose,
Untold Stories
, was published in 2005 by Faber and Faber and Profile Books.

PLAYS ONE
(
Forty Years On, Getting On, Habeas Corpus, Enjoy
)

PLAYS TWO
(
Kafka's
Dick, The Insurance Man, The Old Country,
An Englishman Abroad, A Question of Attribution
)

THE LADY IN THE VAN

OFFICE SUITE

THE MADNESS OF GEORGE III

THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS

television plays

ME, I'M AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF
(
A Day Out, Sunset Across the Bay, A Visit from Miss Prothero,
Me, I'm Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Green Forms, The Old Crowd,
Afternoon Off
)

ROLLING HOME
(
One Fine Day, All Day on the Sands, Our Winnie,
Rolling Home, Marks, Say Something Happened, Intensive Care
)
TALKING HEADS
(BBC)

screenplays

A PRIVATE FUNCTION
(
The Old Crowd, A Private Function, Prick Up Your Ears,
102 Boulevard Haussmann, The Madness of King George
)

autobiography

THE LADY IN THE VAN
(LRB)

WRITING HOME