Tom Brown’s Schooldays – Union Theatre

Tom Brown’s Schooldays continues at the Union Theatre, London until 2 February, 2020

Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

As a naive teenager in the 1950s, Tom Hughes’ almost autobiographical tale about his public school days at Rugby, of privilege, bullying and the terrifying ordeals new boys had to endure before being accepted, had a lasting effect.

I had nightmares about Flashman, the vicious snob who thought nothing of roasting young Tom Brown on the fire and rejoiced when the brave fourth former was receiving 15 lashes of the cane for something he didn’t do. Was a similar fate awaiting me?

In the event, my parents couldn’t afford a posh public school and I was spared the loathsome “character building” traditions, many of which doubtless survive to this day. But 65 years on, Flashman (such a great name for a villain) and his malevolent ilk remain vividly in my psyche.

Now Phil Willmott has reworked the narrative, bringing the story forward from the 1830s to 1941 with the kindly old head Dr Arnold coming out of retirement to help out after younger colleagues have answered the call to serve their country in the Second World War.

That gave director Willmott the peg for Tom Brown’s Schooldays being the first leg of a trilogy of shows commemorating the 75th anniversary of VE Day, that blessed celebration of victory over Nazi Germany in 1945.

Following soon will be two largely forgotten pieces, Lionel Bart’s musical Blitz!, not seen professionally in the UK for 20 years, and Noël Coward’s 1947 flop Peace In Our Time, in which the author imagines what life would have been like if Hitler had prevailed.

Clever though the idea was, it wasn’t what post-war Britain wanted to contemplate. They wanted Coward to be funnier than that. Put in a drawer for 73 years, this revival, Willmott hopes, will find a more sympathetic audience. In each play the director asks: “How did we get here from there?” Answers on a postcard, please!

Willmott believes that the recent General Election when “the vast majority of the British people bewilderingly voted to continue to be governed by upper-class millionaires, many of whom experienced an upbringing similar to that of Tom Brown’s school days” gives this classic story an even greater relevance to today.

For ‘Schooldays’, Willmott has drawn extensively on the 1940 movie which starred Sir Cedric Hardwicke who portrayed Arnold as a public-school-system reformer whose uncompromising exterior hid a sympathetic, tolerant and humorous core.

In James Horne, he has a fine actor well capable of showing every nuance of the headmaster’s personality and in Toby Wynn-Davies as his Eton-hating number two Grimstead, bitter about being passed over for the top job, Horne has the perfect foil.

Most of the best lines are given to and wonderfully brought to life by the lone female in the cast of 14, Ursula Mohan, who runs the tuck shop, rustling up a feast of murphys and spam in that period of ration-book austerity and has an answer for everything. It is a gift of a part and she milks every moment.

This is a play with music rather than a musical but good voices are still required for some spirited singing of hymns and popular songs of the day, often sung a cappella, and here Ralph Warman comes into his own as musical director arranging some barber-shop style harmonies as well as flexing his acting muscles as music master Stebbins.

The choreography of the fight between the bold and excellent Hudson Brown in the title role and Alex Mckeon as the odious Flashman is brilliantly realised by Stephen Louis. Not all the older boys are as evil as Flashman and newcomer Mikko Juan, as head boy Brook getting ready for service in the RAF, is determined to do Rugby and his headmaster proud.

There is an admirable sense of teamwork, as there needs to be with so many bodies on the small stage. Brown apart, Sam James Page as East, Joseph O’Gorman as Lofty, Jacon Seelochan as Spike, Oliver Humphries as Mopes and Joe Goodhead as Winsteed shine as the younger boys with Mckeon and Juan backed up by sinister sixth formers Hugh Tappin and Jack Donald as the appropriately-named Sneerwell and Crusher, both looking to terrorise any new arrival.

It’s a young cast and some of these may go on to greater things. if so, they can look back at Tom Brown’s Schooldays with pride. There have been many shows at the Union I have not seen but it’s hard to believe there’s been a better one. It is Fringe theatre at its most compelling.

Jeremy Chapman