THE DVD SHELF: "The History Boys" and a New "Music Edition" of Fosse's "All That Jazz"
By Steven Suskin
22 Apr 2007
This month's column discusses the film version of the Alan Bennett's 2006 Tony Award-winning The History Boys plus Bob Fosse's fascinating "All That Jazz."
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Alan Bennett's The History Boys [Fox Home Entertainment] made many friends when it visited the Broadhurst last April, with more than a few discerning dramagoers deeming it the finest play on Broadway in years. Prior to the New York engagement, Richard Griffiths and his colleagues from the National Theatre recreated their stage roles for the screen. The motion picture version opened this past fall, and did not have quite the same impact here or abroad.
But don't let that bother you. The History Boys is, or are, just as good on screen as on stage. People who enjoyed the play will feel like they have bumped into old friends. Hector, Tottie, Posner, Dakin and the rest are here, looking just like they did on the stage (not surprisingly, seeing as how the actors sandwiched the job between their London and U.S. engagements). There is an added element, in that we see them out of their stage element and schoolhouse garb; the first shot is of Posner, looking like a skinny young middle class teenager, riding his bicycle through the streets of Yorkshire.
Bob Crowley's stylized stage scenery was simply perfect, garnering him a Tony Award. On screen, though, the first thing we see in the schoolroom — after Hector's magazine clippings and movie posters — is a motley bunch of age-beaten tables and desks, the wooden surfaces worn through in much the same weather-beaten manner as Hector himself. Those of us who loved this play are right back into it, and it's an especially warm welcome.
Nicholas Hytner has recreated his direction, enhancing it along the way. Bennett, of course, knows his way around diverse media. He has filled in much of the action and taken the boys out of the school and into the streets; at the same time, though, he has significantly altered the ending. The one flaw I found upon revisiting the play was that it seemed to have a second, grafted-on ending in the after-the-fact confrontation between Posner and Irwin, the teacher-turned-TV journalist. Bennett has seen fit to omit this and simplify his end-of-story wrapup, with highly beneficial results.
To say that the cast is just as good as before is to understate things. Mr. Griffiths, alone, gives a somewhat different performance; different, I suppose, in that his bulk is not quite as overwhelming on the screen as it was in the theatre, where he physically dominated his scenes. The change makes him somewhat more vulnerable, although just as expert.
Frances de la Tour, in something of the same way, seems to have a larger presence. Does she have more screen time than stage time? Or is it simply what Hytner does with her? On film, her character is very much central to the piece. Stephen Campbell Moore seems younger and more likable as Irwin, perhaps because of the cut material; and headmaster Clive Merrison is as reprehensible as before.
The boys are just superb. Samuel Barnett (Posner) and Dominic Cooper (Dakin) are as every bit as good as they were at the Broadhurst. Jamie Parker (as the piano-playing, church-going Scripps) and James Corden (as the heavy-set Timms) make even stronger impacts than before; so does the not-so-bright athlete Rudge (Russell Tovey), helped out by the camera work in his final scene with de la Tour. So we have now four or five principal history boys, instead of the two who dominated onstage.
The usual rule of thumb is that if you loved the play, you needn't bother with the film. With The History Boys, the Messrs. Bennett and Hytner have sent along a present to theatregoers, allowing us to savor one of our more memorable recent evenings in the theatre. Continued...
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