Cubitt-Newsletter-Lent-2012

CubiƩ NewsleƩer Lent 2012

House Music: Horatio Cox It has certainly been an eventful term for Cubitt’s musicians.

Firstly, there was the series of highly acclaimed Helen Wareham competitions in which Noah Frett and Theo Golden impressively sung their way to finish in first and second place respectively. A majestically theatrical piece from Jon Oldfield was not to the judges taste however, as he tumbled disappointingly out of the event, in a tragic manner that I can only liken to Frankie Coccoza not winning the X Factor. Our friend Theo Golden did not shy away from the limelight for too long, as he delivered a brilliant rendition of Basso Ostinato on the organ in one of Cranleigh’s many lunchtime concerts.

And yes you guessed it; our ever-achieving alto amigo Noah Frett once again graced the stage for this event. Other notable mentions in a term that has simply flown by are various performances from our notoriously beautiful Big Band, which includes Cubittians such as Alex Curtis, Alex Foster and Charlie La Fosse. It is obviously impossible to name every performance throughout this enthralling term, but from our five-star school musical, to our games room piano after prep, the house is hardly short of heart-warming, moodenhancing rhythmic beats.

The Stonesett Trophy: Barnaby Findlay Cubitt’s sporting talent was given a rest on the final Wednesday of term as the more fitness-challenged members of our house sported their green and yellow shirts in the annual Stonesett Hockey Competition. Abiding to a long-standing Cubitt tradition, our teams were categorised into themes: the ‘Front Row’ team, the ‘Gym’ team, the ‘Indie’ team and the ‘Illuminati team’. We very much lived up to our Stonesett reputation as each and every team lost their first two matches. Rather shockingly however, the ‘Front Row’ team and the ‘Illuminati’ team won their final games with the latter squadron managing an impressive 8-1 win. Although this late fight back was not enough to salvage a finishing place worth mentioning, the passion, desire and good humour displayed by all made the afternoon an extremely memorable one.

House Masters Comments

House Hockey Competition: Jonny Pullar Looking at the competition as an optimist, I would definitely say that everybody enjoyed themselves. However, as an optimist, I will mention very little about the results!

The IVth form ‘A team’ consisted of 5 players who have represented the U14As. We had high hopes for this team of super-stars; these were quickly shattered by a 3-1 defeat to East, followed by 2 draws, causing the team to finish third. Ali Johnston played particularly well at the back; the team showed a lot of potential for future years. The ‘B team’ did very well to secure second place in a fierce competition; Oli Trower’s work rate was superb.

The Vth form ‘A team’ was the success story of the campaign, racking up 10 goals in 3 matches and only conceding 2. Will Calnan played an important role in the victory and Tom Howard was the stand-out player. The ‘B team’ also did well to secure second place after a win and two draws.

The VIth form team was lead inspirationally by James Trower!

Fourth place was secured very early on in the competition after a 4-0 loss to North. However, we came back very well to lose to Loveday 2-0 and drawing with East 3-3. The East game went to flicks and the three appointed takers were Luke Chitty (normally a goalkeeper!), James Trower (who should be a goalkeeper!) and Tommy Lyster (who doesn’t know what a goalkeeper is!); Marc ‘with a C’ Sadler put up a valiant effort in goal (having never played goalkeeper before!). The highlight of the competition was fitting all 11 players into Mrs Young’s car for the journey back to Cubitt!

Well done to everyone who played and thank you to all the supporters.

Date for the Diary!

Charity Swimathon: 22nd April: Jack Pearson The first Sunday of next term is the annual Cubitt house Charity day, this year a sponsored swimathon. The whole of Cubitt will be swimming as many lengths of the pool as possible in order to raise money for our chosen charities; ‘Tildy’s Trust’, which raises money for cancer research and awareness, and ‘Beyond Ourselves’, which raises money for the building of a school in Zambia. Everyone will be given a sponsorship form in order to get as many sponsors as possible over the Easter break, hopefully at least ten each. We will also be selling Cubitt house charity t-shirts, in order to raise a minimum target of £2000.

Many of us will also be staying the night before in house for an evening’s entertainment. The day itself will last from 6:00am to 6:00pm, and those who cannot manage the full twelve hours will be coming in for a few hours when they can. A BBQ will be running throughout the day to keep the troops well supplied. All parents are welcome to attend and support the day!

Bialystock and Leo Bloom was a true culmination of their five years performing at Cranleigh. It was a show that highlighted both their individual talents, as well as their ability to work together on stage so flawlessly. They will be sorely missed in Cubitt once they have moved on to the next stage of their acting careers, but their contribution to the schools’ dramatic productions has been outstanding over the past five years.

Mr Cooke has asked me to keep this short, so I shall simply say that Cubitt has enjoyed a wonderfully successful term and there have been some particularly outstanding events and achievements that have made this Housemaster very proud indeed; the House play, the House (sorry, school) musical, the House cross-country and the sixth form dinner to name but a few. It really is a rewarding job and made even more so when it is underpinned by the tremendous house spirit and sense of camaraderie that has again been Rory Savage, who played the exceedingly camp evident. director Roger DeBris, We must also sincerely thank our superb team of matrons, cleaners was highly entertaining, particularly during his and tutors for their dedicated support of the boys and the House; rather shocking first scethey certainly make my life considerably easier too! May I wish ne when he stepped on you all a very happy Easter break and the last words should be addressed to the boys in the exam year groups; please get the bal- stage in a large black gown! However, despite ance right between work, rest and play! this, he pulled off the role brilliantly. He was expertly backed up by his equally camp assistant, Carmen Ghia (played by Ben Castle-Gibb), who provided moments of side splitting humour through his outrageously over the top speeches and outbursts.

It would be impossible to go into enormous detail about every Cubittian in the cast, as so many were key members of the shows’ ensemble and there isn’t enough space on the newsletter! However, the show would not have been possible without the hard work of all of the Cubittians; Alex Livingstone, Oli Parker, Ollie Clark, and Noah Frett, all of whom were invaluable to the shows’ slickHouse Captain’s Column: Henry Thomas ness and overall success. It was a superb show, one that will undoubtedly be remembered for many years to come.

Once again the term began with a fire audibility test at 6am on the first Monday, when CHDB’s bedraggled expression shocked the house into action. A plethora of activities ensued over the next 11 weeks, with the first and arguably foremost feature in any Cubittian’s diary being the house play, ‘The Shoemaker’s Incredible Wife’, directed by Cubitt veteran Barnaby Findlay (U6), the show was put on by a dedicated Cubitt cast second to none and a special mention must go to James Gall & Luke Chitty for coming out and showing their dancing skills. For me, the House Cross Country was the next major achievement, and it is now expected that Cubitt wins every year, 2012 was no exception. Conor McCormack (LV) even ran with only one shoe and still came a very respectable 7th (this is not dissimilar to Matt Foster who won last year also singleshoed). Finally, the musical ‘The Producers’ almost became a house event after it included 8 Cubittians, notably Tommy Lyster and Jon Oldfield taking the two lead roles on their hugely successful end to their acting careers at Cranleigh.

The Producers: Ollie Clarke The Lent term saw a wide range of Cubittians stride once more onto the Speech Hall stage to perform the Mel Brooks musical, ‘The Producers’ (directed by Cubitt’s very own Mr. Copp!). Leading from the front were two of the schools’ finest actors in recent years, Tommy Lyster and Jon Oldfield, whose partnership of Max

The Shoemakers' wife The hubbub of the audience slowly receded to reveal the soft melodies of Ben Cox and Oscar Reeve whose mellow rendition of “Teenage Dirtbag” and “Winter Winds” at their “Bus-K stop” created an atmosphere of quiet anticipation. However, even Hetty Cunningham’s harsh and sombre exposition of the tale to come was no preparation for the cataclysmic shrieks of Georgia Lord’s entrance. The scarlet woman clad in crimson dress seethed with a violent femininity which produced a comic contrast with George Collecot’s masterfully nervous characterisation. Lord’s youthful battleaxe met Angus McConnell-Wood’s grey hair and stoic patience with similar effects to produce a marriage from which even Dante would have shied. It was only Gabi Hill as “The Mother” who seemed able to tame the juggernaught of childish angst with her own brand of matriarchal volume producing a character which belied her years.

The play, translated from Federico Garcia Lorca’s Spanish piece, saw the shoemaker’s wife (Georgia Lord) successfully navigate her way through the various business-like propositions of adultery from the mercilessly pragmatic Mark Sadler as “the mayor”, past the romantic monotone of Will Slynn (Don Mirlo) and over the advances of the suspiciously Italian Henry Crinage whose character had rather more of the mafia boss in it than the doting suitor. Just when it seemed as if the curtain would fall with the shoemaker’s wife still untamed, the dubiously skilful hip gyrations of James Gall and Luke Chitty’s autre moderne limbpumping along with Katie Batchelor and Max Adorian stole the show and placed the marital tiff in a proper perspective. But the real praise must go to Emma Collier and Barnaby Findlay for their directing of what was a comic, punchy (occasionally literally) and enthralling play.

House Chess: Henry Ward Cubittians had just come back to school after their New Year celebrations. First up was house chess to excite everyone.

The only problem; was who could play chess? Henry Ward and Callum Osborne were showing their inner ‘geek’ and thrived at the opportunity. Ali Johnston and Angus McConnell - Wood also represented the lower school.

In the seniors we had the duo of Andrew Justin and Rob Zorab representing Cubitt.

East was our crunch match and we needed to beat them to get out of last place. The scores were tied at 2-2, Henry Ward was coming to the end of his 35 minute match when Callum told him (quote), ‘Wardo, you have no chance of winning’. Sadly he lost shortly after that and Cubitt had to wait another year for chess to enter our trophy cabinet.

House Water polo: Theo Bowden The water polo was not exactly a success, when we first got into the pool we were already a player down and without a sub; Ed de Blaby stepped up to fill the gap. Our first match was against North, which turned out to be our only match! We lost about 13– 0 but this wasn’t unexpected, as Cubitt aren't exactly known for their swimming ability. We did, however, manage to squeeze in a few shots; some close ones came from Ed and some long shots from our goalie Pete Westcott. The rest of the team consisted of Hugo Moxey, Charlie Thompson, Ben Cox and Alex Livingstone who all played well, considering for many of them it was their first time playing water polo.

The Inaugural House Dinner: Jon Oldfield

House Debating : Oscar Reeve So close, yet so far. Loveday came first, easily brushed aside by the fantastic, oratory skills of Alex Clarke, Cameron Scheijde and George Collecott, speaking on the very poignant topic of whether we should be able to deport foreign extremists from the UK. South came next, making the mistake of crossing swords in the battlefield with our debating titans. The smooth tones of the small of stature, but big, very big in fact, vocabulary of Cameron leaving the south girls purring in their seats over the motion of whether organ donation should be compulsory. In the final we came up against Loveday, with notorious ladies man Jordan Bedford drafted in for George Collecott. The motion was whether taxes on the rich should be reduced, a motion which I think most Cranleigh parents would support. We put up a wonderful argument of a perfect balance of economics and morals; however our judging nemesis Mr McConnell-Wood decided to award the victory to Loveday. Best of luck for next year.

House Cross Country: Alex Curtis 2012 has marked another outstanding year for Cubitt house Cross Country. The exceptional performance of 2011 and previous 14 years would be almost impossible to beat, however on many counts this is exactly what was done. The overall team performance was brilliant, with the 8 counting places (10 runners within each the junior and senior team) finishing within the top 18 in the seniors and top 15 in the juniors. Special mentions in the seniors must go to Jack Pearson, Jonny Pullar and Ben Wilson finishing 3rd, 6th and 8th respectively.

Terrific performances in the juniors included Matt Foster in 2nd, Toby Nugent and Charlie Thompson in 4th and 5th. Seb Leman finished in 8th, following his win in the 4th form cross country, in a field of all 3 junior years. Very impressive! As a result Cubitt was victorious in the Junior and senior competitions taking victory overall by a momentous margin. Long may it last!

The last Wednesday of the term saw a mixture of Cubitt’s finest coalesce for what would prove to be one of the best evenings of the year. Andrew Justin, Henry Crinage and Will Slynn all combined their immense culinary knowledge (with the help, support and guidance of John and his catering staff) to create an outstanding five course meal complete with seating plans, candles and a black tie dress code. After pre-dinner drinks, the rabble of Cubitt mass that is the 6th form shuffled their way into the TV room that had been converted into a restaurant for the evening. They took their places where they were able to make polite conversation with the carefully chosen soundtrack for the evening (provided by Charlie La Fosse) playing in the background. In a matter of minutes, a mint and pea risotto was placed before our eyes and, in a matter of seconds, it was gone. A perfectly cooked chicken breast stuffed with mozzarella, sun-dried tomatoes and basil followed and the chefs’ incredible attention to detail was noted through the use of the ‘hashtag carrots’ providing a welcome contemporary twist. The triple pudding of Crème Brulee, chocolate torte and homemade ice cream rounded the evening off nicely.

Special thanks should go to our guest of honour GJNN, the 5th form waiters and to our two newcomers Ash Sran and Horatio Cox – both of whom dazzled us with their oratory skills in adding their thanks to our sovereign leader CHDB.