Plays, 10/13.

"The History Boys, Alan Bennett's hugely successful 2004 play about a cadre of precocious sixth-form schoolboys prepping for a special exam that might result in a place at Oxbridge, made a very happy transition from the National Theatre to Broadway, where it won six Tonys earlier this year," writes Sukhdev Sandhu in the Telegraph. "Now, starring much the same cast, and steered by director Nicholas Hytner, who also shepherded Bennett's The Madness of King George to the big screen, it has been turned into a jolly, occasionally moving and slyly thoughtful movie."

Updated through 10/17.

But for Ryan Gilbey, writing in the New Statesman, "In cinematic form it is no more than a gay Dead Poets Society, or The Breakfast Club with A-levels." Two out of five stars from the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw.

For Time Out, Dave Calhoun talks with Alan Bennett. So, too, does David Gritten for the Telegraph. Related: Alex Rayner on British schools onscreen in the Guardian.

"If you spend time in the company of loss, in its dark woods, it may lead you to interesting places. I was brought to read about and remember a time when the political life of America seemed charged with possibility, nuance, complexity, electric contradiction and the dawning of a new kind of democratic pluralism." Caroline, or Change is a musical at the National Theatre in London through early January. Tony Kushner recalls its gestation. Related: Leonard Jacobs in the New York Press on Wrestling With Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner.

Sam Shepard's got plays running on two coasts. Andy Propst reviews The Tooth of the Crime for the Voice and Robert Avila reviews The God of Hell for the SFBG. Also in the Voice, Joseph Mccombs found Mikel Rouse's The End of Cinematics "a technologically stunning production, with filmed projections on the scrim that are more real than holograms, but his destruction (it's not just deconstruction) of plot is ultimately isolating."

Online listening tip. On Fresh Air, Neil LaBute talks about his new one-play play, Wrecks, starring Ed Harris. It's at the Public Theatre through November 19.

Updates, 10/15: Tristram Hunt in the Observer: "The brilliance of Bennett's play - now opening as a film - lies in its deft needling of that liberal bugbear: the descent of education from the lofty transmission of knowledge to the racket of essays and exams. But despite the mesmerising script, award-winning performances and sheer cultural indulgence of The History Boys, its satire is misplaced."

And Philip French has a generally approving review of the film.

Update, 10/17: John Crace interviews Bennett for the Guardian.

Posted by dwhudson at October 13, 2006 12:39 PM