Ocelopotamus

The History Boys is finally being released on DVD this coming Tuesday, April 17.

According to this review, the DVD comes with a solid curriculum of extras:

Writer Alan Bennett and director Nicholas Hynter share an informative track addressing the changes made to the play but, sadly, do not discuss the interesting cast in personal detail. More information on the cast of The History Boys appears in two featurettes. History Boys around the World: Tour Diaries covers their touring engagements with the play in the Far East, Australia and New York. It’s structured like fast-paced TV fluff, while the piece on the making of the film Pass It On: The History Boys on Screen is less rushed, giving us more input from the various personalities.

The History Boys was one of my two favorite movies of 2006, with a superb adaptation of the Tony-winning script by Alan Bennett and a tour de force performance by Richard Griffiths. You get sublimely witty dialogue interspersed with snatches of Auden and Philip Larkin, a provocative dialetical examination of teaching styles (teaching students to be “thoughtful” versus teaching them to be “smart”), a brief appearance by Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North Penelope Wilton as the art teacher, a soundtrack of Smiths, New Order, and Aztec Camera songs, and of course a uniformly talented cast of adorable English schoolboys. (Uniformly talented, see how that worked?) Don’t bother calling me for about two days after I get my copy, because the phone will be unplugged.

***
UPDATE: Chris Bell has an appreciation of Alan Bennett up at NZBC.