Act 2 Pages 58-63

After reading pages 58-63: Exploring structure: 1. Why does Bennett open Act 2 with this scene, do you think? 2. What similarities can you find between Irwin’s lessons and his script for the TV programme? Why do you think there are these similarities? 3. This scene follows Posner’s moment of connection with Hector and is followed by another scene in which Posner (a student) comforts Hector. What do you think is the effect of juxtaposing these three scenes?

After reading pages 58-63: Close analysis - On pages 58-60, how does Bennett portray the performativity and ‘polish’ required to be a politician, a celebrity and (in Irwin’s case) a ‘good teacher’? - How does Bennett suggest that Posner has changed? In what ways has he not changed?

Posner Create a mindmap of everything you know/ think about Posner so far. Try to support all of your ideas with quotations. Homework: Read the following critical evaluations of Posner. To what extent do you agree with each? Write 1-2 paragraph addressing each critic, using quotations from the text to support/ challenge/ develop on their ideas.

The intrusion of future knowledge into the linear narrative of the play continues to cast a shadow over events, and becomes darker as the story progresses. At the start of Act 2 for example, we see another flash-forward, this time by ‘about five years’. Irwin is in his wheelchair once more, which tells us that his accident will be soon, and not in the more distant future as we may have first thought, increasing the sense of urgency and inevitability. In this future time, Irwin meets one of the students, identified only, to begin with, as ‘Man’. This label also expresses the passing of time through its contrast to ‘boy’, the term used in the title of the play and throughout to describe the students. This ‘Man’ is Posner, perhaps the most fragile of the boys, who is now in therapy and desperately clinging to his past. He says of university: ‘All the effort went into getting there and then I had nothing left.’ Since the boys’ successful entry into Oxbridge has been established as the main goal of the play and therefore what will give the audience pleasure to see realised, this revelation of future disappointment for both Irwin and Posner changes our perception of this goal; we may enjoy the short term celebration the play’s climax brings, but we now see that other challenges will lie beyond. (James Middleditch)

Irwin's style of presentation is twice referred to in the play as "meretricious," once by Irwin himself as he briefly talks with Posner during the outdoor filming of his TV documentary (the proleptic scene in which we learn that Posner's life has turned out unhappily). It is unclear whether Irwin is simply acknowledging that he knew this was the view of the boys five years before when they were his students—Dakin said to him then, "We decided, sir, you were meretricious but not disingenuous" (75)—or whether he is confessing that he is indeed meretricious. There are more ironies and a puzzle, though, connected with this meeting with Posner five years in the future. It is now Posner who is deceptive and meretricious in hopes of making a bit of money from a scandal sheet: he has a concealed microphone on his person in an effort to record something that the now−famous Irwin might say about a relationship with Dakin in the past. Consider, though, this oddity. There are three basically homosexual men in the play: Hector, Irwin, and Posner. Posner, like the other two, is a performer; thrice we hear him sing in the classroom (12, 79, 106). And Posner, like them, is made to suffer. Hector is killed in the motorcycle accident in which Irwin is crippled for life; and Posner, those five years later, is the loneliest and most troubled of the former students. He "lives alone in a cottage he has renovated himself, has an allotment and periodic breakdowns […] He has long since stopped asking himself where it went wrong"

‘Many of the characters live in a state – which I find characteristic of [Bennett’s] plays – of frustrated possibility. Scripps, Posner, Irwin and Hector all, to some degree, are waiting for life to happen.’ (Nicholas Hytner)

‘It is […] fragile Barbra Streisand-loving Posner who steals your heart. After coming out to Irwin he has the classic line: “I’m small, I’m homosexual and I’m from Sheffield – I’m f***ed.” Dakin’s love interest, Fiona, makes only a fleeting appearance.’ (Catherine Von Ledebur)