The History Boys

Hunter TAFE Third Year Advanced Diploma of Acting students present Alan Bennett’s award-winning play, The History Boys. Set in the 1980’s, an unruly bunch of bright, funny sixth-form boys in pursuit of sex, sport and a place at university lock horns with a maverick History teacher and a young and shrewd supply teacher. The two teachers jockey for the hearts and minds of the teenage schoolboys who are on the threshold of transition as they prepare to sit for entrance exams to the prestigious Oxford and Cambridge universities. In Bennett's play, staffroom rivalry and the anarchy of adolescence provoke insistent questions about history and how it’s taught, as well as about education and its purpose. The History Boys deals with the emotional and physical aspects of adolescent life and examines attitudes toward learning and education in general, reflecting both the tragic and fulfilling aspects of teaching, and ultimately questioning the nature of history itself.