House Shout

We're nearly there. In just 7 days/168 hours/4032 minutes/241920 seconds the world will stop, stand still, look up and witness the return of a competition so hotly anticipated that someone, somewhere may have to take a deep breath. No, I’m not talking about the Apprentice (that starts on Tuesday) but about the magnificence, extraordinariness and awesomeness that is the Eton House Shout, or to go by its official title, the House Unison Choirs Competition.

To give an idea of the prominence of this event in the school calendar, imagine being invited to the Palace of Versailles by Nelson Mandela to watch a private gig featuring Mozart, Beethoven, The Beatles and Peter Andre, followed by a variety show that includes a Helen of Troy striptease and Kate Middleton giving birth live on stage to her second child. Picture the exclusivity and once-in-a-lifetime-ness of this hypothetical event and you get something close to what it feels like to witness and participate in the House Shout.

Okay, I may be exaggerating a bit, but if like me you are a House Shout aficionado then next Thursday evening can't come soon enough! My appreciation of this remarkable event was born three years ago, when as an F blocker I sat in the front row of School Hall and watched the whole evening. This was technically against the rules - younger boys being forbidden to linger after their performances - but I'm glad I broke them since I was so unexpectedly entertained and enraptured by the event that I have looked forward to it ever since with an irrational glee.

The House Shout, if you haven't already guessed, is an annual inter-house singing competition. Each house is required to choose and rehearse a song which they then sing on stage in front of a packed School Hall. Every boy in the house must join in, no matter how low his level of singing, making it the ultimate team event and the Holy Grail for a number of ambitious house masters.

However, one of the great things about the competition is that it is traditionally organised by the boys. Although each house master will oversee proceedings from a distance, it is the members of B block in the house who take hold of the reins.

The first thing they must do is elect a conductor from amongst themselves. This tends to be the most musical and/or extrovert boy, the kind who during rehearsals can get away with comments such as ‘come on now Bertie, I’ve heard you singing better in the shower!’ If no clear leader emerges (which happened once in my house) then a mild anarchy fills the void, which ultimately ends up in arguments and fights. Best avoided.

With a conductor in place, the next question to tackle is which song to perform. In some houses a shortlist of tracks is voted on by everyone; in others the B blockers just decide. Either way, the choice of song defines the approach a house will take towards the competition. The fifty percent that go for something absurd by the likes of Hannah Montana or Katy Perry immediately rule themselves out of contention for the prizes. As it happens, these houses generally have zero ambition, save to have fun and entertain. The more competitive houses, however, will opt for a tune more suited to a male choir, like a Beatles or Oasis classic.

Indeed, the run-up to House Shout sees this whole song dilemma become a standard mealtime discussion. Back in F block, when the craze was still alive, Runty suggested doing a dubstep track. Somewhat confused, I pointed out to him that most of the songs didn't even have any vocals. To which he protested, completely seriously, that, 'we could just do the bass noise you know, like wawawawawawa wa wa wa…’ If I hadn't already done so by this point, I think this was the moment I finally realised what an idiot Runty really was.

             

Less enjoyable than discussing which song to pick are the rehearsals. They start brightly enough as people shed their inhibitions over singing a song aimed at prepubescent girls, but drift quickly into tedium as D blockers forget their lines and that once catchy, but now annoying, chorus is sung over and over and over and over and over and over again. It’s probably how the Rolling Stones feel playing Brown Sugar for the billionth time, minus the stadium crowd and the crazy after-parties.

               

Any house with a sense of humour will include choreography in their performance. This always goes down well with the audience, who love to see the more rotund boys in the school attempting moves Michael Jackson would balk at. But even a house full of MJs can’t save most of the singing on offer, which is out of tune, over the top and generally appalling! But therein, of course, lies the charm.

So far my house’s preparations for this year have gone smoothly enough, ignoring the odd stumble here and there. We’ve plumped for a rather poppy tune, which has left me pleased, but Runty less so. During the song, there’s a moment after the second verse when the chorus kicks in a tad later than expected, which has fooled several people in rehearsals, me included. When I fell foul of it I laughed it off, yet it reminded me of similar incident back in F block, when during a rehearsal for that year's house shout I sang a few notes on my own with the rest of the house silent.

Given my lowly status in the house at the time I was mortified, even though the laughter was mostly good-natured. Being the lowlife he is however, Runty teased me about it for several days after. I acted like I wasn't bothered, but inside I vowed revenge. When later he told me that someone had come into his room while he was out and left toilet roll everywhere I tried my best to feign sympathy. But in my head I was thinking, ‘You’re not singing, you’re not singing, you’re not singing anymore!...’