Led by Emily Storey and Grace Steriovski, Engineering Revue was a blur of mis-remembered lines, heckling paper, and a questionable punch. The show entitled, ‘Engo Revue Strikes Back’ was performed for one night in the PNR lecture theatre under classroom lighting, where many students would return at 9am the following morning for their lectures if they made it through the night.
Upon entry, members of the audience received an assortment of old Honi Soit papers and a cup of a mysterious concoction – which I learnt to find was a Jedi-inspired concoction of goon and lemonade. In addition, an incorrectly gassed Newtowner beer was so foul that some students were offering to write PEP claims of up to 10-hours for anyone who dared to drink it straight from the PNR lawns keg. In addition, the Honi Soit papers were thrown by audience members onto the stage, so much so that the floor was snowing in more Times New Roman’s text than the carpet itself.
The performances covered a range of issues relating to campus life, including a response to the Honi Soit article, ‘Engineers fight back against lesbian occupation of PNR’, where a rouge lesbian rejected an engineering boy, and got pushed offstage by mock Honi editors, who believed it was physically impossible for an engineer and a lesbian to co-exist in the faculty. Another sketch involved a student actively interested in SAlt politics but was rejected due to the fact that SAlt doesn’t actually know what to do if a student is interested in their views. Other sketches include ‘Arts Role Reversal’, ‘Engineer wants a wife’, and ‘Failed interview at an unnamed consulting company’ pointing at classic engineering jokes that collated a bunch of socially inept students who cannot socialise if our lives depended on it. If I’m honest, I don’t think I remember much of the show, but I think Fergus Fisher (who played an aeronautical student) was chatting up a life-sized paper plane in a Russian accent at one point.
It was an awkward, but entertaining collection of performances that demonstrated that engineers are as out of touch with main campus life as main campus life is out of touch with the engineering experience.
Accompanied by the actors were three artsy presenting individuals, who played an assortment of the Star Wars soundtrack and classic Minecraft tunes, with whatever Daniel Mooney was doing on the tin whistle. They were the backbone of the show, and it would have fallen to pieces without the four of them.
As the rowdy night came to an end, celebrations ensued at the PNR local pub, The Royal in Darlington with the cast, crew, and audience members. It was a good end to the night.
