Review: Mr St Andrews, Modesty wins the lot

This was a weird night.

RAG week is renowned for its raucous and ridiculous events. In fact, before I came to St Andrews someone told me about a week here called Shag week in which people throw condoms at you and ask for money. RAG week seems suspiciously close to this description. But hey, it’s for charity! Mr St Andrews is perhaps the purest manifestation of the very raucous and ridiculous behaviour that RAG week so beautifully embodies.

And beautiful bodies there were not. Save for perhaps Mr Athletic Union (you’re welcome, Charles). Several rounds, including the enactment of various imaginative sex positions and showing off a personal talent, amongst others, allowed the night to flow into the late hours. Much of the success of events like these rests on the shoulders of those we see on stage most often, the hosts, who try and provide a seamless transition between rounds.

They did a wonderful job of covering up any potentially awkward silences, and would even crack the odd joke when transitions back-stage went wrong. A well-executed awkward moment came, for example, in the seduction round, when Mr LGBT had the task of seducing a female. The male host quickly took the place of the female member of the audience being seduced, and both the host and the contestant won many laughs as a result of decent improvisation on both parts.

Improvisation proved to be the key ingredient for entertainment at the event. Mr Agnes Blackadder Hall (ridiculous name for a Hall, sorry) would often fall to his knees in excitement and shout out something that no one could hear without a microphone, but at which the audience still laughed. The best moment came in the talent round, in which each member had to display a fortitude in any area they liked. After some interesting beat-boxing from Mr McIntosh, and nice chords on a guitar from Mr Uni Hall, Mr Race2 strode on stage, bagpipes in hand, and performs with perfection a one minute piece that left the audience on their feet. Indeed, Mr Race 2 emerged the winner of the whole competition, after knocking out Mr LGBT in the Scavenger Hunt. The point at which Mr Race2 won provoked possibly the loudest sound ever to hit St Andrews. Hundreds of females screaming at supersonic levels in Venue 1 rattle the brain to liquid. It was so loud that it set off the fire alarm in the Vic. True story. Ask Secretly Famous.

I don’t think a contest like Mr St Andrews would work if its contestants took themselves too seriously. For a start, two candidates are thrown away within minutes of the show starting, which would surely cause psychological trauma for those ‘in it to win it’. I think the trick is striking a delicate balance between confidence and moderate self-consciousness, something we lack all too often here at St Andrews. The contest displayed an array of young men (and one lion – hi Rory) that seemed to have struck this balance well.

The winner, Mr Race2 – the most outwardly modest of the lot – excelled at this.

But the question remains. What about a Mrs St Andrews?

images courtesy of Alex Williams