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Originally published in 1975, Malcolm Bradbury's seminal novel The History
Man proved to be an enormous success when faithfully adapted for television,
although the lashings of sex and nudity may have distracted some viewers from
its more serious satiric intent.
The title, a phrase now part of the vernacular, actually refers to Howard
Kirk, a radical Sociology lecturer at the 'University of Watermouth'. The
opening credits (pop art animations in the style of Lichtenstein) repeat
Bradbury's amusing mock disclaimer that the institution represented bears "no
relation to the real University of Watermouth (which does not exist)"; most
assumed it was modelled on the University of East Anglia, where Bradbury had
been teaching since 1966. However, the main location for the television version
was the University of Lancaster.
Antony Sher shot to stardom as the philandering schemer Howard Kirk, while
Geraldine James is tremendously affecting as Barbara, his sad, disenchanted
wife. They have an 'open' marriage, but it is clear that she feels that it is
wearing thin; Howard makes himself less and less available as the number of his
dalliances increases (usually accompanied, appropriately enough, to an aria from
Mozart's 'Don Giovanni'). Isla Blair also stands out as the cool and calculating
social psychologist Flora, a character that can be seen as a precursor to Dr
Rose Marie in Andrew Davies' equally satirical but more overtly surrealist
campus comedy, A Very Peculiar Practice (BBC, 1986-88).
The main plot focuses on Howard's potential dismissal for 'moral turpitude'
(for sleeping with a student), but the story's thematic underpinnings are more
rewarding as they anatomise the distaff side of student revolutionary movements
in the 1970s, which displayed less of the previous decade's sense of optimism as
money became scarcer and industrial action increasingly common. More subtly, the
tragic-comic episodes of Howard's accident-prone colleague, Henry Beamish, offer
an evaluation of sociological study methods; the nature of causality and chance
in his disasters are contrasted with the games played by Howard as he
manipulates all those around him. The duelling concepts of free will and
determinism - the fading of liberal humanism in the face of the more
programmatic view of 'historical inevitability' espoused in Howard's
revolutionary ideology (hence the title) - provide the intellectual backbone to
a funny but ultimately distressing tale about a dynamic and charming but
fundamentally callous and intellectually dishonest anti-hero, who in the end gets
all he wants.
Sergio Angelini
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1. 'This is silly' (4:15)
