Gleeful Lunch

“Do you mind if I sit here?”, a male student asks me and my friend, pointing to an empty chair at our table. “Of course not” we both shrug. The Student’s Union café is bustling full of hungry students at 12:50 on a Friday afternoon. People seeking chairs in the warm and cosy cocoon from the cold is to be expected. What we were not expecting is what happened next.

The man takes out an empty Starbuck’s cup and places it down on the table. He begins using it to beat out a rhythm, clapping his hands and slapping the table. A few tables down, another male student begins doing the exact same thing, perfectly in sync. We didn’t realise that the student at our table was Carl Bennison, co president of the Oxford Brookes Glee Club, and we were witnessing the first few bars of a flash mob performance.

Scattered all across the room, members of the Glee Club begin singing to the rhythm of When I’m Gone (that Pitch Perfect song.) Soloist, Martha Camerer-Cuss, takes the lead and demonstrates a very natural talent for the art.

After a round of applause the group begins their second song, Some Nights. Standout voices include Bennison and Bakos. The group collaborate harmoniously, creating a truly cheerful atmosphere inside the café. My friend and I fight the urge to join in and sing along, although we both admit to fully getting into the spirit.

Representing only a fraction of the whole of the Glee Club, these members give the performance to promote the real show tonight at the Children in Need event at 7pm in the Student’s Union building. For an expectedly quiet lunch, we were more than happy to stay and watch both full performances. Definitely worth being late into lectures for.

Glee Club meet every Tuesday from 7pm. 

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