MARION SAUVEBOIS meets The History Boys’ teacher Richard Hope

IN THE wings just as on stage the boyish camaraderie between the young cast is catching.

Fresh from a matinee of Alan Bennett’s award-winning play The History Boys and divested of their navy blazers and starched uniforms, the young actors bound along the Everyman Theatre’s corridors one after another with schoolboy vim.

The clues are there for anyone to see: the (explicit) doodles scratched on the set’s weathered school desks – remnants of days before the advent of digital screens and interactive boards - the commotion and banter echoing in the distance.

Over the tumult, appears Richard Hope, a paternal figure not unlike his character, Hector, the boys’ charismatic English teacher Hector, albeit a tamer and more appropriate role model.

The actor who until recently starred as Harris Pascoe in BBC’s Poldark was at one time Laurence Oliver’s protégé (the Thespian even suggested him for Brideshead Revisited). When touring ends he will resume filming for the period drama’s second series.

“There is no mumbling,” he booms. This was not going to be a repeat Jamaica Inn’s infamous muttering debacle. Yes, he too had to turn up the volume before throwing in the towel and switching on the subtitles.

“I met people from Cornwall and I’m doing a Truro accent, but properly. If people can’t hear what’s being said you think ‘I’ve just missed half the story.”

The decision to join the tour post Savile scandal and Operation Yewtree was not one he took lightly. But he chose to focus on the teacher’s role in igniting the boys’ thirst for knowledge; their mentor guided by the mantra ‘all knowledge is precious whether or not it serves the slightest human use’. His occasional groping of students’ genitals is relegated to what his students make of it, a shortcoming.

“My concern was that post Savile people would just go ‘I’m not going to see that; it’s that sort of play’. Hopefully when you see it it’s a play about teaching. The way we tried to do it is show how he inspires his students and as the audience, hopefully, you think ‘I know it’s wrong but why do I still like him?’

“He is trying to make some connection with the people he teaches. The first couple of scenes you see him and you think it’s complete madness, that he can’t possibly teach at all. But you realise he does have some sort of contract with his students and they still like him. That’s the nice thing. I hope people go away thinking about how we teach things - there is no time for general knowledge anymore.”

Set in the 1980s, The History Boys follows a group of bright and unruly sixth-formers at a modest grammar school in Sheffield. They are streamed off as an elite set, to stay on an extra term and sit Oxbridge entrance exams. Irwin, a shrewd supply teacher is recruited to give them a push to the finish line. But Hector finds himself at odds with the young man and his teaching methods.

The emphasis certainly was on learning throughout rehearsals. There was no question of parroting the French monologues without understanding a word and each of the multifarious references, poems and quotes was duly researched and contextualised. This was possible thanks to a library of classics at the cast’s disposal and to Richard’s initial surprise a dozen specimens of the all-knowing iPhone.

“The highlight for me was actually managing to learn it all,” he smiles. “It’s a marathon to learn. There are so many literacy reference and it has to go at pace for it be real.

“What I found a bit of a shock was that in rehearsals rather than discuss something or go to the library the younger members of the cast would just check everything on their iPhone or iPad, it was instant. I’m not bad at technology, I got twitter recently. But I would never get Facebook out of respect for my kids.”

Unlike his predecessors on stage and in the movie version, having worked with Le Grand Magic Circus, Richard had the advantage of holding his own in Moliere’s tongue.

“French and maybe more comedy were the only thing I had that they didn’t. Everybody keeps saying that Des Barrit who had done the part on stage before me had to learn the French scene and parrot it.”

Like his Cornish lilt, his French pronunciation promises to be mumble-free.

Sell A Door Theatre Company’s production of The History Boys will run from Monday, June 1 to Saturday, June 6 at the Wyvern Theatre. Tickets cost between £18 and £30.50. To book and for more details go to swindontheatres.co.uk or call the box office on 01793 524 481.

Back-to-school style of rehearsals for cast

Richard’s relief at meeting Bennett’s learned standards was shared by the entire cast, not least Kedar Williams-Stirling, Hector’s brightest and favoured student Dakin.

“The real learning curve for me was on an academic level,” reveals the 20-year-old actor who recently starred in CBBC’s Woolfblood.

“It was like going back to school and looking deeper into things I would never have looked at otherwise. I didn’t speak French before but Matthew Durkan, who plays Crowther, speaks French so he translated it to help us. I’m learning French now though, it’s inspired me.”

The importance of learning at the heart of the play bled into his outlook on his character’s unorthodox relationship with Hector.

“We were never oblivious to what Hector does but I looked at it as a relationship you can have with someone who inspires you and intrigues you.”

The back-to-school mood of rehearsals was brought closer to home for Kedar when he discovered his former head boy at Sylvia Young Theatre School, Steven Roberts, had been cast in the role of Posner – a fellow History Boy who harbours a burning yet unrequited love for Dakin.

“I knew him then and he looked after me. Now he has a crush on me, which is pretty funny.”

Sell A Door Theatre Company’s production of The History Boys will run from Monday, June 1 to Saturday, June 6 at the Wyvern Theatre. Tickets cost between £18 and £30.50. To book and for more details go to swindontheatres.co.uk or call the box office on 01793 524 481.