A reader writes:
Did you see or read the play? I never had a chance to see it, but I did read the play. The movie is quite faithful to the original until the end. The play is significantly more depressing for the Posner character … He goes to Oxford, fails to complete a degree, has a nervous breakdown, and is on the dole when he tracks down his former tutor, now a paraplegic journalist, who had been his rival for the attentions of the handsome classmate. Posner never, to my recollection, becomes a teacher in the play. His final defeat and humiliation is essentially eliminated from the screenplay.
As an out gay high school teacher (I teach French!… my students are ages 15-18), I must agree with your reader who saw more of the old tortured-homosexual-syndrome at work in this otherwise brilliant play/screenplay. Our distance from the oppressive atmosphere portrayed by Bennett’s film is more significant than you initially supposed.
I’m grateful for the info about the play, which I have neither seen nor read. Poor Alan Bennett.
The Dish 