Is Exeter University emerging as the new powerhouse in student musical groups on the Edinburgh Fringe? Let’s not complicate this - the answer is simply but emphatically Yes.
A show made up of 45 stars and that is how many I wish I could give them
I warm up for the big show with a visit to SemiToned Presents: Castaway (16.05, theSpace Triplex). SemiToned are an Exeter University a cappella group. They meld together a number of songs around a fun story - they have crashlanded on an island and elements of this experience prompt their songs. Their chat is cheesy but fun, enabling us to meet them all individually through their antics, and they harmonise beautifully. Ollie Baker stands out to me for his beatboxing. A wonderful start to an afternoon of Exeter student musical performance, I think to myself. I’m ready for their Show Choir now, I think to myself. How wrong I am.
You can never be ready for the shining eyes, power ballads and sensational dancing of the magical A Night At The Musicals - Spotlights Show Choir, Exeter’s phenomenal show choir. Think Glee, but in series three when they win nationals. Mixed together with Vocal Adrenaline and the Warblers. With all of NYADA chucked in.
From the second the company hits the stage, they never stop, with classy number after classy number - from Dear Evan Hansen, Wicked, Mamma Mia, Fame, Greatest Showman, Les Miserables - the hits just keep on coming. And this lot have more energy than the Blackpool Illuminations. By the end of the show, I am completely exhausted just watching them. They all sing beautifully, they all dance elegantly, they have individual expression and collective synchronicity. They hold absolutely nothing back. Their use of space is something the England rugby team could learn from. There is a wonderful fusion of masculinity and femininity, not least in the Fame section where we see cartwheeling girls and high kicking boys, amidst an explosion of self-expression through movement. The final 25 have been sifted through two rounds of auditions from around 100 original applicants, and their quality shines through all parts of their performance.
Behind the 16 talented girls and nine extraordinary boys who rock the stage, there is a phenomenal creative team. Supported by Assistant Producer Marie-Louise Kelly, the team is led by English graduate Poppy Thomas as Creative Producer - boy is she creative and boy does she produce. Her Company Technical Manager is physics graduate Lewis Covey-Crump. He is astronomically good. Admittedly, there are a few technical problems with sound that need to be sorted out before the second show but mics for thirty six in the rush of a Fringe get-in would stretch a professional technician on the first performance, let alone a student physicist. The lighting, on the other hand, is absolutely sumptuous from the get-go. I know it will be special when the lights go down just after the band start playing - a classy start to the show and so it continues. The choreographers have done a phenomenal job putting together this show in just one three hour session on the morning of the first performance, with no other rehearsals in the past three months. The dance steps are sharp and crisp, the groups are moved around the stage beautifully, and the synchronisation is as clean as hell. I would like to see a few bowler hats for the Bob Fosse bits but hey, I’ll let that go. One choreographer, Harriet Philips, is a Drama student from Cardiff High School. The other choreographer, Magsie Knowles, went to Esher College. Two hugely talented women from two state schools. Musical Director Edward Marshall has traded the beautiful chapel of St Edward’s, Ware, for a band of eleven, and they sound just as jazzy as they should. Eight cheers for the Creatives.
Spotlights works under the umbrella organisation of Exeter University Footlights and stage three shows a year, a Showcase for one night only, and a two night run at Exeter’s Phoenix Theatre. This beggars belief - on this showing, we need to see more of this group everywhere.
Spotlights is a show made up of 45 stars and that is how many I wish I could give them. Then there is SemiToned and I haven’t even got yet to the Illuminations (Soundtrack Of A Breakup, 13.35, theSpace Niddry St), the other Exeter a cappella group. And who knows what else they have up here? One of Spotlights' songs is The Winner Takes It All. The winner this year is undoubtedly the one who takes in all of Exeter University’s student musical shows, because they are ruling this aspect of the Fringe.
