London

Looking for Alan Bennett in the backstage area of the National Theatre (or ‘the servants’ quarters’, as he once wrote), I’m confident of one thing: I know what he looks like. Bennett’s appearance has changed surprisingly little in the four decades since, at the age of 26, he took to the stage with Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and Jonathan Miller for ‘Beyond the Fringe’ at the Edinburgh festival in 1960. Feature continues

Back then, Bennett led a double life: by day, he was an Oxford academic who was studying the retinue of Richard II; by night, he was a comedy writer and performer in the West End. He was more slender then, of course, his cheekbones more pronounced, but he sported the same boyish fringe, thick-rimmed glasses and unassuming tie-and-jacket combo that greet me in a backroom at the National Theatre that, we both agree, smells of new car leather.

Bennett has agreed to a rare interview to talk about ‘The History Boys’, the film of his much-celebrated and award-winning play, which, like the theatrical version, is directed by Nicholas Hytner (also director of the National Theatre). I find the writer, now 72, slumped benignly in a chair and as happy to recall working with Peter Cook and to discuss the guilty pleasure of watching ‘Footballers’ Wives’ as he is to talk about the film and how he first had the idea for Richard Griffiths’ eccentric teacher, Hector, over 20 years ago. ‘The History Boys’ takes place in the early 1980s, but it’s very much an amalgam of the writer’s own experiences and his ideas about the conflict between exam-passing and true learning in education.