British charm, and so on

My mother just introduced me to Alan Bennett, by way of bequeathing me the DVD of Talking Heads. The idea behind this dinky little series is this: one well-known, middle-aged British actor sits in a chair for half an hour and tells a story. I'd actually not heard of it but apparently it's famous. My eyes are blind.
"You might like it," said Mum, "it's quite different, it's really interesting. He's very funny."
"Hmm," I said politely.
"Then again you might not," she said, "but give it a go."
I was surprised to find that I did, in fact, like it. Having studied film in various forms for the past two years, I've picked up the funny old notion that an audience likes a cut from shot to shot every now and then, and prefers seeing more than one person on screen in a half-hour episode. Good looking actors. Interesting sets. Decent lighting. But somehow the series rose above these little details and fascinated me with what it did offer - a collection of fascinating, funny, bitter, pathetic human beings (with delicious British accents) talking about the happenings of their weary lives. It seemed conversational at first - "mahy hoosband" this, "the mohnin pehper" that, but as they talked, they hinted at secrets: a pornographic filmmaker; an inter-racial affair; a sex crime. Did she just say...? Did he mean...? Surely not...? I had to keep listening. I needed clarity. It felt very much like having a conversation with someone who was so busy telling you about themselves (someone like me, perhaps, who takes The Question to heart) that asking them a clarifying question would interrupt the perfect flow of their story, besides which you'd get the answer in time - seeing as it's what they were building up to in the first place.

And today I rented The History Boys from the local Blockbuster, only to discover that this little-heard-of movie is a creation of Mr Bennett's also. It's adapted from a play that has been doing breathtakingly well in Britain, but we don't seem to have heard of so very much. I didn't know til the special features that this was Bennett's work (not being a credits watcher like certain people I know). It's the story of eight smart and smart-arse public schoolboys applying for Oxford University. Their teacher Mr Hector (Richard Griffiths), a passionate, expansive, ruddy-faced man, tries to teach them the value of knowledge, the appreciation of literature and art, stressing the importance of life itself while flippantly dismissing the "education" he is supposed to be providing. His classes are a riot of singing, reciting, performing and laughing - all in the name of cultural appreciation, of course.
The boys' headmaster desperately wants them all to get into Oxford because it'll make him look good, so he employs Mr Irwin, a young Oxford graduate, to tutor them in history, with the express intent of getting them accepted.
The characters are gorgeous. They are sharp and witty, a close-knit group who share their feelings with one another... in fact they are remarkably unrealistic. I attended a public high school just two years ago, and the boys weren't smart, communicative or artistic. But so what? These characters are better than real people. That's not to say they're gooder. Just more... compelling.
As with all stories about single-sex British schooling, there's a powerful degree of homoeroticism at work. That and, well, lots of gay boys. There's only one heterosexual partnership mentioned, and one of the players in that considers trying the other side. Even the teachers... well, won't spoil.
But what I actually got out of this film was a wonderful sense of perspective on education - what it's worth; what a university placement is worth; what a degree from a good university is worth. And then - where real education comes from. Where, and by whom, the most important things are taught.

I like Alan Bennett. He's really quite good.