Record International Night draws acclaim
A record sixteen societies came together under the banner of the Overseas Societies Committee last week for International Night 1997. The event consisted of, as usual, a food fair followed by a cultural show and a disco.
International Night has long been the most popular social event in the college calendar with people from all over the country, as well as London, attending the festivities. This year provided no exception with events that lasted a total of over seven hours enjoyed by all that attended.
The evening started with punters sampling food from all the participating societies in the dining hall. This lasted longer than expected and the cultural show in the Great Hall was delayed by some three quarters of an hour in the end. The show was well worth the wait, however.
Each society performed a short and highly entertaining piece to demonstrate their culture both traditional and modern. Of particular note were the Malaysian society who did a traditional song known as ‘Dikir Barat’ which involved a twenty-five strong chorus performing synchronised hand and body movements whilst singing. The Bangladeshis treated the audience to a day in the life of a ‘rickshawalla’ whose various passengers provided an insight into his culture. No International Night would have been complete without the Lebanese belly dancer and there was another this year in full force providing much entertainment for the male populace present.
The audience seemingly enjoyed the entire show and their support was always evident not only in their appreciation for each act but their willingness to join in with an impromptu ‘Macarena’ lesson given by the Tamil Society. The two comperes, Gaurav Misra and Zahira Zainudin, handled the proceedings very capably and provided an amusing touch to the evening with their mock bickering at the end of each item.
The show went on well past midnight, demonstrating that there had been a great amount of work put into it. The finale unleashed thousands of pieces of silver paper onto the audience as well as many balloons, accompanied by the arrival onto stage of the national flags of all the participating countries.
The party then carried on in the SCR well into the small hours of Saturday morning. Commenting on the whole event, one member of the audience simply said, ‘This is the best International Night I’ve ever been to.
