Hullfire Online » University Features http://www.hullfire.com University of Hull Student Newspaper Sat, 08 Oct 2011 19:10:23 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Heavens To Murgatroyd http://www.hullfire.com/2010/03/27/heavens-to-murgatroyd/ http://www.hullfire.com/2010/03/27/heavens-to-murgatroyd/#comments Sat, 27 Mar 2010 16:51:18 +0000 Online Editor http://www.hullfire.com/?p=1373 ]]> Cowering in a corner whilst being tormented by the ghosts of my ancestors was hardly the way I’d expected to begin an interview with the director of Hull’s Gilbert & Sullivan Society (HUGSS). It must just be what happens when you sit in on a rehearsal of this year’s G&S show: Ruddigore; or, The Witch’s Curse.

It was an experience – being surrounded by men jabbing fingers at me and generally tormenting me – that gave extra weight to what the show’s director, Lucy Thomson-Smith, later told me about how keen the Society is on including in their activities anybody who’s interested. ‘I feel like it’s always been quite a welcoming group. You know, if you can’t sing, you can’t dance, you can’t act – we don’t care, come and join us! We’ll just have fun with it.’

That’s not to say that the cast can’t sing, dance or act – just that it isn’t necessarily a priority of HUGSS. As Thomson-Smith says, ‘it’s always nice within the chorus that we have this interesting mix of people who are different ages and doing different courses and who have different abilities’, and one of the challenges of HUGSS is working with a cast that doesn’t necessarily have vast theatrical or musical experience.

The same is true of the show’s principal roles. One of the more experienced principals is Rory Oliver, the leader of those men doing the tormenting earlier on. Near the beginning of the second half, he belts out the song that Thomson-Smith regards as the script’s ‘high point’ – he certainly did it justice in the tiny rehearsal space in the Larkin building. ‘The Night’s High Noon is this fantastic song about the ghosts coming to life and enjoying themselves at night’, which is crucial to the plot of Ruddigore.

Oliver plays the leader of the ancestors of the new Baronet of Ruddigore, Ruthven Murgatroyd, whose family line is cursed in such a way that means he has to commit a crime every day or be subject to more of the torments I endured in rehearsal. Understandably, Murgatroyd isn’t happy about this family curse and does his best to get around it. This being a Gilbert & Sullivan show, there are several couples running around trying to get married to each other, before changing their minds and wanting to marry someone else. As Thomson-Smith explains the plot to me, I can see what she means when she says that this is ‘a parody of Victorian melodrama, and it’s Gilbert and Sullivan’s opportunity to poke fun at that’.

Unlike previous HUGSS shows Ruddigore is far from the most well-known of G&S works. In a way, that’s why Thomson-Smith has chosen to do it. ‘A lot of G&S societies’ she tells me, ‘tend to revolve around the same productions. That’s because everybody loves Pirates [HUGSS 2009 and 2005], Iolanthe [HUGSS 2008], HMS Pinafore [HUGSS 2007 and 2003] and The Mikado [HUGSS 2006].’ HUGSS last performed Ruddigore in 1997. Far from being daunted, Thomson-Smith is excited because, ‘it’s got two fantastic songs in it already, and the more I looked into it, I thought ‘this has got some really good songs in, it’s got some really good creative opportunities to run with’.

Among those opportunities is the style she’s chosen for Ruddigore. Following on from the last two HUGSS shows (‘very successful, innovative productions [that] decided to do something different and non-traditional’), Thomson-Smith has put her own mark on the show. Believing that ‘doing G&S as G&S doesn’t work any more; it doesn’t pull in an audience’, she has exploited the fact that Ruddigore is ‘quite gothic, it’s got a scary edge but it’s a dark comedy’ and has taken an appropriate inspiration: Tim Burton.

Burton’s work ties in especially well with the show’s professional bridesmaids (‘corpse bride figures…decaying and falling apart.’) and a ‘nervous and unassuming’ male lead. ‘Using a Tim Burton inspiration really, really works well with this and lends a modern edge to a traditional production’.

But above all, for Thomson-Smith ‘HUGSS has always been about enthusiasm and the passion; people always want to turn up and want to have fun and they enjoy doing it – and I think that really comes across in the production’.

Ruddigore; or, The Witch’s Curse ran in Middleton Hall on the 3rd, 5th and 6th of March at 7:30pm. Tickets were £6 for an adult, with £4 concessions.

Richard T. Watson

My sincerest apologies to Lucy, Richard, HUGGS, and Hullfire’s readers for the magazine’s lateness. Although at time of going to print the performance was two days away, the edition will not appear until the run has concluded.

—Ed.

]]> http://www.hullfire.com/2010/03/27/heavens-to-murgatroyd/feed/ 0 Post-Graduate Studies http://www.hullfire.com/2009/02/23/post-graduate-studies/ http://www.hullfire.com/2009/02/23/post-graduate-studies/#comments Mon, 23 Feb 2009 19:26:11 +0000 Online Editor http://www.hullfire.com/?p=591 ]]>

You may or may not be surprised to know, but to some extent it is actually quite similar to being an undergraduate. For some post-graduate courses, lectures are still the norm, but for other courses that are more fundamentally research based, it could entail days on end trawling through library books searching for substance for a 17,000 word literature review. I am fortunate that mine is a bit of both.

In discussion with other students about what it is like to undertake one of the plethora of post-graduate programs here at Hull (MA, MSc, MPhil, MEng, MChem, PhD etc.) two of the most recurring themes were that of ‘dedication’ and ‘time-management’. The life of a post-graduate can be a difficult one; the academic standards can be quite the step-up. But like all serious challenges in life, commitment and determination are important to succeed, and a post-graduate degree is exactly that, a serious challenge.

It can be a solitary life, but also an invigorating one. For me personally, I found the respect granted and the high levels of communication received from my post-graduate course lecturers to be invaluable. It is like as we shed the cotton wool it is seamlessly replaced by a warm blanket, and as a result a greater sense of belonging. A lot of post-graduates also work directly with lecturers and become involved in the wider teaching process.

At the same time though, the post-graduate student is never truly insulated. The sports teams and societies are always around, and still do an amazing job of helping individuals to integrate whether you move far away from here or decide to continue learning down by the Humber.

I undertook my undergraduate degree at the University of Hull and after taking a year out to work and rest my body and mind after 16 years of fairly solid education, I decided that the place I wanted to do my MA was right here. I already knew the city fairly well, I knew the campus like the back of my hand, and I knew that Hull is one of the cheapest places to live in the country (which for some Post-graduates is even more vital).

One of the major differences as a post-graduate is around funding, and I won’t pretend I know all there is to know about it, but I know for a fact it’s not as easy as posting off a form to the student loan company (although for me it was a form to the NHS) and in some cases, employment alongside may be required to fund it. Different courses have different procedures, and some even require entire research proposals, but in this economic climate it is imperative that if you are considering it, do not be afraid to ask about the money!! It’s your education after all.

Most importantly though, you really do have to want it, and if anything, a post-graduate degree is an excellent opportunity to relish learning before we have to go out and get a ‘real’ job.

Benjamin Fisk

]]> http://www.hullfire.com/2009/02/23/post-graduate-studies/feed/ 0 Public Eye http://www.hullfire.com/2008/09/11/public-eye/ http://www.hullfire.com/2008/09/11/public-eye/#comments Thu, 11 Sep 2008 23:46:19 +0000 Online Editor http://www.hullfire.com/?p=78 ]]> Many of you will have a Facebook account and think nothing of using it to create events and give opinions. However, have you ever stopped to think about your privacy being compromised?

Students are no longer the only people accessing social accounts; they are being accessed by professionals and authority figures from both inside and outside universities. Our University students became victims of this cyber-policing towards the end of last semester when an event called the “Lawns Mashup” was created, whereby residents at the Lawns were invited, via Facebook, to a large party and football match on the fields surrounding the halls. Within a short while of this event being created a notice went up in each block from the head warden indicating the severe penalties that would result from any student attending the event, as laid down by both the police and the University.

Students at the Lawns were left wondering as to how the Wardens had found out about this planned party. When asked, the head warden confirmed that the Lawns Mashup was indeed discovered on Facebook but that he was also “made aware of a text message being sent to students as well”by the organisers themselves. Apparently there had been a decision taken due to earlier unauthorised parties in the year to ban all parties which were not in the Lawns Centre itself.

However, did the wardens have the right to ban the Lawns Mashup and other parties when students were paying to live there? Would the party, if it had gone ahead and not been cancelled by the head warden, have classed as a breach of our contracts?

It does state in the Lawns Residence’s conditions that residents must “refrain from doing anything which would damage or litter the grounds, gardens and pathways around the Residence” and “refrain from any behaviour which may be perceived as riotous or disorderly”. Therefore the wardens were fully within their rights to stop the event taking place.

Despite this, it was the fact that the University found out about the event via Facebook which, to some, indicated the use of cyber-policing by the University. There has, naturally, been a backlash in response both online and through word of mouth as students resent having what they see as harmless fun put to a stop.

The issue at the heart of the matter seems to be not about the cancellation of the Lawns Mashup or the penalties put in place for attending; it is the issue of privacy. The University were correct to stop the event but was it right that our communications were screened to find out about it? The Lawns Mashup is not the only instance of the University stepping in in response to events on Facebook and it will probably not be the last. They are in their rights to prevent these events but ultimately, are the ends justified by the means?

Jennie Harrison

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