For anyone who likes Alan Bennett and remembers their days in the sixth form, this performance of a modern classic is a great way to spend the evening. As a Grade II listed building that hosts many shows that travel to and from the West End, the Richmond Theatre seems an appropriate venue for a fresh rendition of a play celebrating its 20th anniversary.
The staff and students at St Cutlers Grammar School in Sheffield are back in a vibrant revival by Seán Linnen that is constantly pierced with nostalgia for the 1980s when this work is set, homing in on the life of eight unruly but strikingly bright sixth-formers. They’re kept on an extra term because they, more than any previous batch, have a realistic shot at Oxbridge and need to prepare for the prestigious entrance exams.
But these boys, arguably a product of their time, have some real distinction and individuality that are brought out in Seán Linnen’s direction. There are memorable interactions between Crowther (Tashinga Bepete), Lockwood (Curtis Kemlo), Timms (Teddy Hinde) and a Muslim boy Akhtar (Mahesh Parmer.) But there’s more than just energy. There’s sensitivity and complexity underlying all of them, not least in Rudge (Ned Costello) and Posner (Lewis Cornay), whose unrequited love for much more outgoing Dakin (Archie Christoph-Allen) can perhaps be expressed through his talent as a pianist, with performances that frequently punctures scenes.
And there’s Scripps (Yazdan Qafouri), who’s confident enough to openly discuss the affair he’s currently having with God and question the findings he’s uncovered in his exploration of Christianity that he expresses with a purity of heart that only the young can extol as part of a tapestry of possibilities of a life that’s only now beginning to open up.
And it is this purity, exploration and sensitivity that the teachers also love about the boys, literally, it turns out, in the case of Hector (Simon Rouse), the complex, conflicted, maverick English teacher who believes in learning and culture for its own sake. His fondness for his boys, particularly those he fancies, eventually leads to much trouble, but its portrayal is reflective of a time when the remnants of the 1960s sexual revolution still pervade and during which attitudes towards sexual expression are less boundaried.
This is also the case in the teachers’ perspectives about education. While Hector believes in knowledge only for the enrichment of the mind, the supply teacher Irwin (Bill Milner) has a shrewder and more pragmatic approach. He’s quick to borrow any soundbite or quote and use it in an almost deliberately contrarian way in case it could help the pupils pass an entrance exam to universities where the unexpected and original are known to win over.
Meanwhile, Headmaster Felix (Milo Twomey) is concerned only with league tables, while Mrs Lintott (Gillian Bevan) is a history teacher who is possibly the wisest of all and can see the fallibilities in both sides of the debates, bringing a much-needed female energy to the scenes. She questions Hector’s quest to implant no end of knowledge that has no obvious or vocational use and without even the judgement of exams; is it actually worthwhile or is that simply a cushion against the inevitable failure that many who subscribed to this point of view found themselves later down the line? It could be argued that a certain amount of the rigidity required by formal examinations is needed to consolidate knowledge and maintain focus.
And these discussions flip, quite literally during the production, with a switch of a simple but versatile set designed by Grace Smart, where a block reverses to give us two worlds: inside the classroom where the pupils are being coached and in school outside the classroom where the teachers clash over the best way to teach the boys. What is also cleverly brought out in this production are the underlying frustrations of the teachers; are they fulfilling a love for their vocation or carrying out a duty where other avenues are closed off?
All themes which are explored in Bennett’s rather heavy text that nonetheless has a youthful energy thanks to Linnen’s direction. There are the notable northern witticisms so characteristic of Alan Bennett that sit amid arrangements of 1980s pop classics and dance sequences choreographed by Chi San-Howard and which can’t fail to sweep the audience along and back to their own sixth form days.