'Audience enthralled' at this year's McEachran Competition

This most eccentric of Shrewsbury School Competitions took place this year on 30^th January in the Churchill’s Room of the Moser Library, the perfect setting for a competition based on the power, sound and meaning of words.

The Competition commemorates the extraordinary Frank McEachran, known to all whom he taught as ‘Kek’, who taught at the school from 1935 until his death at the age of 76 in 1976. His teaching centred on short extracts of poetry or prose which he termed ‘Spells’.

The Competition requires participants to select their own ‘Spell’ and deliver a four-minute freestyle talk on it. It is not a forum for the faint-hearted, and has regularly showcased some of Shrewsbury’s brightest and best, particularly those willing to stray beyond the curriculum straightjacket.

Twenty-one hopefuls, from the Fourth Form to the Upper Sixth, kept the audience enthralled on a huge spread of topics, with Spells drawn from English and Russian novels, Orwell essays, Latin texts, classic poetry, song lyrics and film screenplays, all chosen by the contestants.

In the words of the Headmaster, all were winners, but two contestants had to be singled out for prizes, and the adjudicator, Old Salopian and former Kek pupil Richard Hudson, awarded prizes, in the junior category to Matthew W (SH, V) and in the senior to Lilith P (QEH, LVI).

Matthew chose as his text the opening sentence of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, the stimulus for a compelling talk on obsession with image, and our ability in the 21^st century to manipulate it; Lilith chose lyrics from Bob Dylan’s Just Like a Woman from which, in a beautifully-crafted talk, she was able to mine pure gold.

Commended in the junior section were Remus Y (O, IV) and in the senior, Beatrice M (MSH, UVI). It was a wonderful evening, with some of the audience visibly moved by the passion, commitment and courage displayed by all the contestants.

Richard Hudson