Richard Griffiths

Interview By: Stephen Snart
StephenSnart@TheCinemaSource.com

The History Boys first found success at the National Theater in London where Alan Bennett's play became a crowd-pleaser so well regarded that it was transported across the pond to Broadway with the original cast and director, Nicholas Hytner, firmly in tact. The show was a resounding success in the United States as well and became the recipient of six Tonys. Now, the story will be accessible on screens all over the world with the original cast playing the beloved characters one last time on film.

Despite being set in England during the early 1980s, The History Boys is an instantly accessible work through its fascinating dissection of education practices. The title refers to the class of the top eight boys at a grammar school in Sheffield who are being pruned by their headmaster for entrance into Cambridge and Oxford.

Richard Griffiths plays the corpulent Hector, the boys' 'general studies' teacher. Hector's approach to education is unorthodox in this day and age, as he preaches the virtues of learning for the sake of learning rather than merely to prepare for a test. Griffiths himself speaks of this philosophy with great warmth, lamenting the loss of an early speech in which Hector explains, 'He has found, in his time, among people who went to private schools with smaller classes and more intensive education' they swam in the language, in the culture, in the literature. As kids they could freely talk about anything from Winnie the Pooh to Shakespeare up to modern writers like Auden. Because they just knew it. It was a shared knowledge they had. They could inform their private conversations with this stuff in a way that normally they expect only academics to handle. [Hector] wanted his kids who were at the state school to have that quality. That confidence. That ability to talk like that. Because it would help them inevitably in their future lives.'

Some patrons have attacked the play's politics as improper and have decried the mentality to be Thatcherist. Griffiths disagrees firmly with this viewpoint. 'If you go through the book with a word analysis, for me I used to hear it every night, the two words I hear are 'heart' and 'love.' And that's what it's really about.' Griffiths then turns to Shakespeare to draw a comparison to Bennett. 'Every time I've been in The Tempest, it always strikes me, that in every character you can hear the voice of Shakespeare trying to address the audience directly as Shakespeare. It's not just Prospero. Part of him is Calliban, part of him is Ariel,' Griffiths continues down the list of characters in The Tempest, 'In a strange way, I felt the same thing about The History Boys. Alan inhabits every character and from time to time he addresses you personally from the point of view of each character.' Griffiths expounds upon the presence of Bennett's distinct personality within the script, indicating, 'Alan did Irwin's technique to get in and get on in university. It's his spin, he did that coldly and calculatedly when he was a student' He's the one who had a professor like Hector'Dakin is the type of boy he would have liked to have been, Posner is the boy he was, and so it goes.' Griffiths then turns grim for a moment. 'He's seventy-something now and he may not have too many plays ' I hope he has another fifty ' but he may not have many more and this was very important to him from that point of view.'

As can be seen from the story's prolific transfer between mediums, the tale was not just a personal achievement for Bennett, but something very special for all of those involved. 'I was in a company like this in 1976 at the Royal Shakespeare Company. And I told [the young cast members], thirty years have gone by, this is the next best company. This is very unusual. Treasure it because from now on this will be your yardstick for all the work you do. Every job for the rest of your life will either be better or worse than The History Boys and I'm sad to tell you that very few of them will be better. But when they are, you're going to have a ball so enjoy it.'

After conquering the Tony awards, logical talk has turned to Oscars with the film approaching its release date. But Griffiths doesn't concern himself with any of the hype. 'This was never about pot hunting. Never was. Because that's where madness lies. I've been there. I did that when I was thirty years old and I got really smacked up by it. So, I learned my lesson and ever since then it's been a bonus.'

Rather than an attempt to cash in on the play's success, the film seems to have stemmed from a genuine fondness for the text and an undeniable camaraderie between everyone involved. What's certain is the film will be an indelible second chance opportunity for those who weren't fortunate enough to catch The History Boys on stage during its limited engagement. As Griffith puts it economically, 'You get a chance to visit us much more cheaply than you could at the theater.' How's that for Thatcherism'