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Sherriff Night and Rowers' Revue 2009

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A big thank you to Roland Wales for the review and to Mr Williams for the photos of the second half below. Please does anyone have any photos from the first half?

Review

Last Saturday the Sherriff Club hosted its second celebration of the writing talent of its primary benefactor - R C Sherriff, the noted playwright and screenwriter - and of the performing talents of the school's rowers.

The evening was hosted by three Masters of Ceremonies - the Boat House Captains Sophie Robinson and Pavle Dimitrijevic, and Athena Loizou from the Lower 6th. All three did an excellent job, with Pav's exuberant audience control, and Sophie's emotional farewell to Colin Greenaway particularly memorable.

Sophie   Champion fundraisers

The first sketch of the evening put the new Head through her paces in a lively encounter with R C Sherriff - or Mr Smalman-Smith as he's known around these parts. The Head admirably stood her ground in the face of RCS' confusion at the prevalence of girls and women throughout the school (and the Boat House) and enjoyed, with the rest of the audience, Sherriff's liberal quotations from his articles of the 1930s.

As last year, the evening was themed in part as a tribute to Sherriff, but this year the rowing theme was amplified by the inclusion of a number of well known pop songs, the words of which had been altered to reflect more-rowing based concerns. In the first half the 3rd Form girls' squad treated us to a spirited rendition (with actions) of I Will Survive (cruelly cut short by a mix-up between booth and stage), while the 4th Form boys overcame their nerves and led all 30 or so boys (from 3rd Form to senior squad) in a raucous version of a Clash song: Should I Scull or Should I Row.

The main dramatic highlight of the first half was the Sherriff Club's unique 10-minute Dambusters, sparklingly performed by the girls of the J15 squad (for those of you with long memories, they played in White Carnation last year. The wonderful performances by the whole cast (with special mention to Ali Middleton as Guy Gibson, and Hannah Marsters as Barnes-Wallis), were only slightly marred by the producer closing the curtains as the first trial bombing run took place (mea culpa!). And no-one seemed to notice the absence of Gibson's labrador........

Before the first half ended we were treated to a new video of the Sponsored Row (available for purchase - email ), and we celebrated those pupils who had raised the most in sponsorship (Lara Hodson, George Roberts, Sam Johnson, Maria Hughes and Fenella Ross), and those parents and Vets who had raised more than £1,000 in sponsorship (Elisabeth Allin-Figl, Sandra Brincat, Neil Christie, Peter Hartman, Brian Howard, Fiona Reynolds, Catriona Rogers, Alison Rumbold, Joan Wales). Emma Cronin was on hand from Cancer Research to accept cheques worth more than £15,000, and with the latest estimated sponsorship total now standing at £45,000, there should be another £7,500 being handed to Cancer Research in the next few weeks. David Freeman's videos of the Sponsored Row can still be viewed on this page.

After the interval, the second half got off to a flying start with the senior girls' rendition of Portaloo (with apologies to Abba), closely followed by the J15 girls' song and dance version of Like a Novice (thanks Madonna). Not to be outdone the J16 girls came back with another song and dance number of their own - in a homage to the Jackson 5 called Blame it on the Rigging.

Senior girls   Senior Girls

Sandiwched in between the songs was another dramatic highlight - the first ever performance of scenes from R C Sherriff's unknown and previously unperformed sequel to Journey's End. The senior boys who took the parts treated the performance (of quite a sombre piece) with due seriousness, and particular mention must be made of the performances of Mark Gillis as Stanhope, Pav Dimitrijevic as Trotter, Owen Newburn as Sir William Brand and Christoph Allin as the Commandant. As last year, Peter Wales was the only actor in the evening to speak German: kudos!

Journey's Other End   Journey's Other End

Bouncing back rapidly from their measured dramatic performances, the boys then gave us a raucous and full-throated treatment of the Time-Warp (from the Rockey Horror Picture Show), rewritten as "Let's Go Beat Hampton Again" in honour of the departing Head Coach, Colin Greenaway. They showed their attachment to their coach by their eccentric costuming, by the liberal application of "I Luv Colin" tattoos (actually magic marker), and the spontaneous group hug that almost did for the stage electronics and lighting! But a more affectionate and heartfelt send-off would be difficult to imagine.

As the evening rounded off, Andrew Sim (Chair of the Sherriff Club) took us through the highlights of Colin's career before presenting him with a plaque and a framed copy of Pushing Past the Palace, on behalf of 9 years worth of Sherriff Club parents.

Colin   Colin

And in order to allow everyone to recover their composure before heading home for the night, the entire company of rowers and parents joined together in a lusty version of YMCA, led by Izzy Dubois (in the now iconic hat featured in the Sponsired Row videos) and those J15 girls yet again..........

Finally, a huge thank you to the magnificent helpers in the booth, led by Martin Hoj, but more than ably assisted by our three technically minded rowers - Patrick Socha, John Allen and Sam Theron.

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For a review and photos from the Sherriff Night 2008 click here