A recent picrture, posted on The Hollies Facebook Page, sparked a discussion about when the tradition, of the incoming Prefects bringing the school year to an end by staging a Review, began.
The earliest Primary Source record I have is a programme from 1967 (no pictures of the Reveiw, unfortunately. )
This was the Swinging Sixties, when the Beatles ruled the airwaves, satire from David Frost and the Magic Roundabout ruled the TV, and Britain ruled the waves.
The Lower Sixth were preparing to take over the duties of the Upper Sixth in the September term. The items in the Programme included a spoof, called The Decline and Fall of the Sixth Form Empire.
The pupils were responsible for staging the whole Review. I remember recording the music and sound effects on a reel-to-reel tape recorder. We had just one failure - Silence is Golden failed to play and the poor girl who was sitting alone on stage must have been in agony. Our Head Girl came to the rescue by speaking the lines into a backstage microphone, but the effect for whuch we were hoping never materialised.
The Magic Roundabout was the tour de force; costumes, music, sound effects, scintillating script - it had the lot - and it managed to assume the slightly high psychedelic atmosphere as the BBC's cartoon.
My big stage moment came during The Long, the Short, and the Tall, a sketch based on The Frost Report's Class Sketch.
Being little, I played The Short. I was extremely nervous because I had all the best lines, including the punch line at the end - Just you wait 'till I'm a Prefect.
The Decline and Fall of the Sixth Form was satire. It poked fun at the school rules of which we, as pupils, couldn't see the point.
Prefects had the power to sanction lower school pupils for any infringements of the rules (name tapes on shoelaces is a Hollies myth)
Sister Victoire and the Staff enjoyed the Review (they laughed a lot) and it gave them an insight into the talents of some pupils who they might not have noticed before.
When the tradition of the end of school Review began, no one seems to remember. Comment here if you have any ideas.
