AGAINST the debate about state schools versus privileged education and access to Oxbridge, Alan Bennett’s play set in 1980s' England adds fuel to the arguments.

This is another hugely enjoyable production from the Sell A Door theatre company, which last week gave Darlington audiences an uplifting experience with Avenue Q.

Formed six years ago, the company aims to bring challenging theatre to new young audiences, and twice within a fortnight again fits the bill – giving equal pleasure to older heads, too.

The pace is fast as wit, knowledge and argument spurt loquaciously from a group of teenage boys and the mouths of their teachers, with Bennett’s prescient themes about the dumbed-down learning and social inequality wrapped up in classroom exuberance amid undercurrents of sexual depravity.

A-levels behind them, the top grade grammar school boys are back in class for a term to hone their brains for Oxford and Cambridge entrance examinations.

Richard Hope’s rosy-faced declamatory polymath Hector expounds humanities and the arts as learning for life, while new master Irwin, an uptight Mark Field, promotes ways to impress examiners and dons by imaginative playing with facts – “Stalin was a sweety and Wilfred Owen was a wuss”, as David Young’s stolid working class pupil Rudge sums it up.

Teamwork among the boys displays great warmth and individual character, and there is subtle comedy from Christopher Ettridge’s Headmaster and Susan Twist’s outspoken Mrs Lintott. Special plaudits go to Steven Roberts for his song performances and camp posing as troubled soul Posner and to Kedar Williams-Stirling as the self-possessed Dakin.

The play is moving, funny, offers food for thought, and a display of brilliant timing and deft action in a scene spoken entirely in French with unmistakable meaning.

Pru Farrier