Med Revue is an annual event put on by students from The University of Queensland Medical Society (UQMS). Students across all year levels come together to create works of art in a range of cultural performances. This year the event was held in August and the theme for the hilarious show was Inside Gout. The Med Revue convenors shared with us an insight into what sounds like a lot of fun.
We sit here writing this a day after our last show and it’s hard to believe that Med Revue is over for another year. What is even harder to believe that we actually made it happen at all. Each year the production brings together around 250 medical students to act, sing, dance, write, make props, direct, paint faces, open curtains, and perhaps saddest of all, close curtains.
It’s a massive undertaking with planning starting around 10 months before opening night and finishing up usually in the early hours of the Ekka show holiday. It’s hard to explain exactly what it is that happens in the course of creating Med Revue and so, at the risk of sounding a little cheesy we’re going to call it ‘magic’. While creating or participating in the show, a rare window of opportunity opens; a group of people formerly only connected by their studies develop another level of common ground and camaraderie. In fact, for many students who participate, Med Revue is the pathway to discovering new friendships and possibly even hidden talents.
Speaking of new friends, hopefully they feel that we have thanked them enough already, but in case our appreciative noises weren’t audible through our tears of happiness we would like to use this post to thank them again. The show would not have been possible without the creative and production teams - you all know who you are. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We are eternally grateful to you all. To everyone who participated in the show your enthusiasm and commitment moved us more than we could ever have imagined. We can’t thank you enough!
This year we approached Med Revue with a slightly different goal. We wanted the show to be funny – it is a revue after all - but also firmly grounded in a set of real experiences and emotions. We hope that the audience members who came along recognised their own thoughts, feelings, and even parts of their own narrative infused in the story. We hope this because, whether we were aware of it at the time or not, a lot of ourselves and our personalities went into the story line.
Inside Gout – The story line
Inspired by the film Inside Out, we presented a story about the emotions and motivations inside the head of medical student, Jessica. Our five central characters Drive, Chill, Impulse, Worry, and Affection represented Jessica’s feelings and personality traits and allowed us to express what pushes Jessica through life.
Drive, had an intrinsic desire to achieve and improve herself, which could be difficult while running a team of emotions that she constantly had to keep in line. Chill wanted to relax, snack, and procrastinate as much as possible and Impulse wanted to do (or sing) whatever popped into her head, regardless of the consequences. As you would expect Worry feared the worst whilst Affection wanted to make friends with everyone and fall in love.
Inside Gout followed Jessica’s journey after an experience leaves her feeling like reality is not living up to her expectations. This is when her inner mind and life began to change. Suddenly the positive aspects of her emotions and motivations disappear and all that remains is their toxic manifestations. Just as everything is looking bad for Jessica she experiences a moment of impact in her life which has a lot of meaning. Luckily, she’s willing to be open and mindful of the importance of the experience and she is changed for the better as balance returns to her mind.
Writing the show was a formative experience for all of us, as we wrote it with the aim of tackling issues of crippling self-doubt, malignant procrastination, substance abuse, and being a slave to our own obsessional personalities.
One of the most amazing things about putting the production together is that everyone who participated in the hours and hours of preparation was able to sublimate the energy they would normally devote to these negative things towards something positive. That's all we could ever want.
Check out the below video from the 2016 show, introduced by none other than Hugh Jackman!
Your cool, kind, and collaborative convenors: Danny, Matt, Beau, Ashley, and Emma.