Alan Bennett’s “The History Boys” is coming home. The landmark play will return to London’s West End next year for the first time in 20 years, with Nicholas Hytner directing the production he first staged in 2004.
Alan Bennett and Nicholas Hytner (Credits: Variety)
Hytner’s original National Theatre production became a cultural phenomenon, transferring to the West End and then to Broadway, where it swept six Tony Awards. It also collected three Olivier Awards at home and launched the careers of its young ensemble, including Dominic Cooper, Russell Tovey and James Corden.
When and where The History Boys returns
The revival will play the Theatre Royal Haymarket for 16 weeks, from April 10 to July 24, 2027. Tickets go on general sale at 9am on Friday, October 23, with 20,000 tickets priced at £25 available across the run. Casting will be announced in January 2027, and Olivier Award-winning designer Bob Crowley returns to design the production.
Hytner said: “More than 20 years after it opened at the National Theatre, it’s the right time to be bringing this great and much loved play back to the London stage. I can’t wait to take another look at it, and to introduce it to a new generation of theatre goers.” Bennett called it “one of the happiest plays I’ve written,” noting it took him far less than his usual five years to write.
What the play is about
Set in 1980s Britain, the comedy follows eight pupils at a Sheffield boys’ grammar school as they navigate adolescent desire, staffroom politics and teachers locked in an intellectual tug-of-war. Along the way the play takes on sexuality, growing up, what history actually is and what schooling is for.
Producers Brian and Dayna Lee, whose “Giant” won the Olivier for best new play and earned four Tony nominations on Broadway with John Lithgow, called Hytner’s original staging “an era-defining moment in contemporary British theatre,” adding that “Bennett’s sharp, funny and deeply moving exploration of institutional culture, class and education feels as timely as ever.” The revival also brings Len Blavatnik and Danny Cohen for Access Entertainment, with Mark Rubinstein as executive producer, following the trio’s recent collaboration on “The Standard of Living.”
Also Read: Julia Louis-Dreyfus Makes a Triumphant Broadway Debut in ‘Other Desert Cities’ | CMA’s Dolly Parton Tribute Stuns: Sabrina Carpenter, Oprah, Julia Roberts and Bono Honor the ‘Great Unifier’
Source: Variety — read the full story there.
