The History Boys, by Alan Bennett [2hr30min --thru 18-Mar-06]

I was both entertained and challenged when I saw the brilliant History Boys, Alan Bennett's multi-award-winning play, in London in 2004. The 'history boys' are 18-year-old secondary students preparing to enter the university from a school where Hector, the Humanities teacher, believes teaching should be the nurturing of wisdom, but the headmaster wants the boys prepped for Oxbridge entrance exams to raise the school's visibility."The school gives them an education. I give them the wherewithal to resist it. Examine a boy and he is tamed already. Only examine him and you can tax him, empanel him, enlist him, interrogate him and put him in prison. You have only to grade him and you have got him." So says Hector, played by Richard Griffiths (best known to US audiences as Uncle Vernon in the Harry Potter movies). Bennett is the author of The Madness of George III, Talking Heads and Beyond the Fringe (with Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and Jonathan Miller), among many others. [Click"Listen to the latest programme" to open BBC Radio Player; under"A-Z OF ALL SHOWS", scroll down to"Drama on 3 -- Bennett -- The History Boys"]

Playlist:

Hector ...... Richard Griffiths
Irwin ...... Geoffrey Streatfeild
Mrs Lintott ...... Frances de la Tour
The Headmaster ...... Clive Merrison
Crowther ...... Samuel Anderson
Posner ...... Samuel Barnett
Dakin ...... Dominic Cooper
Timms ...... James Corden
Akthar ...... Sacha Dhawan
Lockwood ...... Andrew Knott
Scripps ...... Jamie Parker
Rudge ...... Russell Tovey

Samuel Barnett (singer)
Jamie Parker, Tom Attwood (piano)

Producer David Hunter.