MedSoc Ball 2014

The Guildhall, 7.30pm, 2nd February 2014, £40 members, £45 non-members. 

Back in secondary school, we (along with half of the country) were taken to the West End to see a production of Stomp. It was a cacophony of pots and pans and whistles and dustbin lids. If you are wondering what happened to Stomp, it appears that they are alive and well and playing ball gigs in Cambridge. This is how the Medsoc ball began: the trolleys, bins and cones which littered the main stage were not, in fact, part of the décor. They were part of the act.

That’s not to say that it was a bad thing. Percussion ensembles are perhaps not the go-to for a ball, but they were lively and the atmosphere in both of the rooms of the ball definitely benefited from an injection of energy. In fact, all of the acts were entertaining without being dominating, and provided the perfect soundtrack to the night.

For £45, you got unlimited alcohol from May Ball favourites La Raza, as well as champagne on entry. In addition there was ample supply of hog roast (though without stuffing, gravy or apple sauce; gutted), mac ‘n’ cheese and pizza, as well as donuts bigger than your face and some quite nice cheesecakes. The help yourself pick ‘n’ mix was delicious, but it went faster than it would have done in an unguarded Woolworths. Considering cinema prices, though, we probably got our money’s worth in gummy bears alone.

There were no queues, which is always a plus, and a real testament to how efficiently and professionally the event was run. What’s more, the booze didn’t seem to run out too quickly. The silent disco is always a winner, especially when it’s being run by CREEM, and by containing the ball to two rooms the organisers guaranteed a friendly and almost intimate atmosphere (bet you never thought you’d hear that word outside a Corpus review).

The problem (or advantage) of subject-specific balls is that everyone pretty much knows each other. You’re paying for a night of free booze in a nice room – which, to their credit, was decorated very nicely – with people that you know. Unfortunately, as a lapsed medic and an English Literature student, there wasn’t a huge amount to do. Churchill Casino provided excellent, professional-level entertainment (as always), but once we’d spun the roulette wheel and had a horrifically cheesy couple photo (c/o Tom Porteous), we’d exhausted the range of entertainments, and there was nothing left to do but drink. Whilst that’s not necessarily a bad thing, and it wasn’t detrimental to the ball itself, you didn’t have to be a medic to enjoy this event. But it definitely helped.