On the theme of “music”, St Mary’s Balloon Debate kicked off with ‘The Jackson 5’ performing one of their hit singles. Next up were the ‘X Factor Judges’ and ‘Love and Hate’. Other performances ranged from ‘Rhianna’ to ‘The Voice’ itself. All the participants were fantastic, dazzling not only with their charismatic delivery but also the strength of the arguments they made; the committee had a lot of trouble deciding who to throw from the balloon in the first purge.
Remaining in the second round were two of the ‘X Factor Judges’, ‘The Composer’, ‘The Piano’, and many more humorous acts. However the balloon was sinking and more needed to be thrown out. The third and final round consisted of 6 participants without set speeches. The six were Ella as ‘Mr James’ (musician extraordinaire, of course), Emily as ‘A Sound Wave’, Minna as ‘Simon Cowell’, Tabs as ‘Billy Ray Cyrus’, Hetty as ‘Elvis’ and Tatiana as one of the ‘Jedward’ twins. They had to debate off the cuff to have themselves kept in the balloon, and each character had so much to say that the Chairwoman had to intervene several times to ask for one speaker at a time! They also responded wittily to several points from the audience.
The debate finished with a delicious cake made by the kitchen staff and three winners lucky enough to be kept in the balloon- ‘Billy Ray Cyrus’ (Tabs), ‘Elvis’ (Hetty) and ‘Mr James’ (Ella). All the participants spoke extremely well and the committee experienced extreme difficulty in choosing who went through to each round. The evening was a huge success, ending with everyone in laughter when the real Mr James attempted to speak, only for his lookalike Ella to take over in the usual thanking everyone and asking if the audience could please pick up their litter … Ella will be Chairwoman next year!
Thank you to everyone who made the evening a success; the participants were fantastic and thank you to the committee and Mr Daley for organising everything and setting up the hall.
Report by Louise
