Alan Bennett: interview

Alan Bennett‘s gentle Yorkshire tones and middle-class appeal too often pigeonhole him. But from his early days in ’Beyond the Fringe‘, through his pioneering television screenplays, to his latest work, ’The History Boys‘ – now a new film – a sly subversiveness has always permeated his work. Famously wary of journalists, the Camden resident grants Time Out a rare and candid interview to discuss the eroticism of education, the Queen‘s sense of humour and why he loves ’Footballers‘ Wives‘.

'The Madness of King George' (1994)

In his introduction to the screenplay, the director of ‘The History Boys’, Nicholas Hytner, suggests that initially he felt more comfortable than you about turning the play into a film.
[Laughs] It was partly because he was doing other things – and also because he’s got all the responsibilities of this place. [Gestures at the National Theatre around him.] We never actually sat down and talked about what we were going to do with the film. He was waiting for me to come up with something and I couldn’t quite semade what there was to do. I knew you couldn’t open the play out much beyond a classroom. I found I was going through it and keeping most of the stuff. Then I thought: Well, this can’t be right, so I was trying to write new stuff. And then I thought: Why am I trying to write new stuff? Only because I feel that I ought to.

Nick then had time to think about it and said it was fine. We didn’t do a great deal. Most of the work was cutting, and he did a lot of that, which is fine. We work so easily together, really, that I trust what he does, and he trusts me. There’s always slight tension with the writer on films, but there certainly wasn’t on this. Or on ‘George III’ either [which Hytner also directed, for stage and film].

You’ve largely kept the play intact.
Some say the film is sadder than the play. I don’t know whether it is or not. The people from the stage door here said they went to see it. They said [lowers voice] ‘It’s sadder than the play.’ [Laughs]

I think it’s partly that in the play the young master, Irwin – who’s in a sense the most unsympathetic character, certainly on the stage – you don’t realise he’s quite vulnerable until the middle of the second act really. If there’s a villain, he’s it. Whereas in the film it’s not quite like that. It’s partly that on film you can see into his eyes, you can see that he’s troubled. I think that’s why it seems slightly more painful probably than on the stage.

‘The History Boys’ implicitly suggests that education is like a love affair: it demands risk, honesty and emotion.
I’d written the play and then I read a book by George Steiner about teachers. In the scene where Hector is sacked by the headmaster, he doesn’t say much in his own defence, until towards the end of the scene, when he says: ‘Teaching itself is an erotic act’, and the headmaster cuts him off. That’s a quote from George Steiner. I was encouraged that you could devote a whole book to this.

The way the boys protect Hector and don’t betray him is, I suppose, the same thing. I think with Irwin, if there’s love there, it’s much more teasing and more flirtatious.

The boys think little of Hector’s ritual of groping them on the back of his motorbike. They accept it as a quirk, an extension of his eccentric teaching methods.
I think it’s one of the hazards, really – not even a hazard, just something that happens. They don’t set any store by it. They don’t give it any significance. Except Posner: the boys who don’t go on the motorbike feel shut out because they’re not in some sort of club. The club is some sort of relationship with Hector, probably. The motorbike only came in quite late. And of course I’m told by everybody now that you can’t ride a motorbike one-handed, so it’s not feasible anyway! I think you can probably ride a light, scootery motorbike with one hand, but not one of these big ones!