You could say it was a fairly eventful night in the Long Room.  Under the watchful eye of budding megalomaniac Sam Brightbart, we were put through the paces of the kind of drama session we hadn’t seen since Year 9.  Disaster initially struck as we found that our tiny group of nine still managed to contain two Steves, but a quick renaming solved this neatly.  There was also a nice mix of Freshers and Second Years. 
We begun with games, of the ‘Stand In A Circle And Make Fools Of Yourselves’ variety.  I must say I’ve never heard the words ‘bitchy’ and ‘lemon’ connected so well.  Sam put us through a series of increasingly bizarre challenges before deeming us worthy of some actual acting. 
First up was a real blast from the past: the one where you do three linked freeze-frames based on single-word themes, in this case Jealousy, Theft and Revenge.  I took part in a tale of wanton manipulation and lies, most of us ending up dead on the floor.  The other group spun a more subtle story of love and shamelessness, but still finished up with Nicole menacing three cowering victims with what might have been an imaginary assault rifle. 
Then something a bit different.  Sam showed us a painting, and with this in mind, we split into two groups and set about drawing up original sketches.  For some worrying reason, both of those ended up with somebody about to die, too.  One also contained a large amount of slightly cruel, but hilarious, jokes about a certain prominent member of Oxford student society, while the other involved FHA “Titus” Steve demonstrating an uncanny aptitude for playing an evil mastermind. 
Finally, Sam printed out four different Fry and Laurie sketches from the internet and we attacked them with our own particular panache.  A senile Yunnan got poisoned, Steve “Caesar” Clark demonstrated complete inability to grasp the concept of a woman falling off a horse, Titus became a slightly madder father figure, and I attempted to meet a customer’s demands for a weaponised toaster. 
All in all the night was a success.  Despite enough pretend death to put the Assassins’ Guild to shame, we all had good fun and Sam proved himself an excellent event-runner.  The MAD team (all one of him) runs events like this fairly regularly - there’s usually something going on every fortnight, even weekly - and I’d recommend you check them out provided you aren’t too afraid of making a total fool of yourself.  But that’s half the fun, isn’t it?

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