The V-Show (Variety Show), is an annual production by the University of Bath Chinese Student Society. It gives students a platform to showcase their talents and also the opportunity to learn the importance of collaboration, leadership, as well as to develop stronger bonds with fellow students.

Nee Hao talks to Jasmine Chung, the Marketing and PR Officer for the University of Bath Chinese Student Society V-Show

Tell us more about who is organising this year’s V-Show and their responsibilities? 

Every year, the V-Show is organised by first year freshers. For this academic year, the production team’s roles and responsibilities are as follows:

Performance Director: Timothy Chang – Respsonsible for directing the drama crew

Drama Director: Ulysse Ha – Responsible for the script

Dance Director:  Julia Wong – Responsible for the dance and choreography

Off-Stage Director: Ric Cheung –  Technical support

Technical Director: Constance Hui – Film and photography

Production Director: Vivian Kwok – Responsible for overseeing entire show and supervising

Publications Director: Jasmine Chung – Marketing, PR, design and social media

What is the 2016 V-Show theme about? 

This year’s V-Show takes a creative and fantastical theme. It revolves around mortals and immortals, a love story with a bit of magic. Jun has never dated before and after getting help from Angel, he then wins her heart. The story slowly unravels in that Angel is not the person who he thought she was, and also there are many dark secrets behind the other characters in an intertwined love triangle within groups of friends. It is in a university setting and is a romantic comedy, therefore we hope many of our audience can relate to this.

Has their been any challenges in putting on such a production? 

There has indeed been an incredible amount of hardship that the production team experienced. Firstly, having received very late notice for the booking of the venue (only having approximately one month of actual preparation time), we were required to adopt an extremely intense rehearsal schedule of around 2-4 hours a day. Then there were issues such as the pressure of coordinating large groups and balancing the workload between school work and work for the show. Also the location of our venue was a bit far from base, which made some people reluctant to come; but thankfully the interesting variety of our performances and quality of participants made up for it.

What do you anticipate the reaction will be from the audience? 

To be honest I found the quality of the drama crew to be surprisingly high — perhaps because I don’t know how to act at all. But I think the audience will definitely find the play entertaining, if not hilarious. It’s meaningful in the way it explores notions of friendship, true love, betrayal and redemption. I also sincerely hope everyone will enjoy our dance performances. I think the audience will get a positive experience from the performance, but the most important thing is putting our best effort in and thoroughly enjoying the show ourselves; that in itself will hopefully be sufficient for both the audience and the participants.

What advice would you give to next year’s V-Show organisers?

Be different. Think of something that makes your show original and intriguing, create something that you know is not going to appear in any other university’s Variety Show. In our case, it’s the incorporation of a rather comedically vulgar and unmannerly ‘Angel’ in our storyline, and the relationship between the dances and singing performances to the drama in order to further bring out the emotions played.

Still, nonetheless, my biggest advice would be to enjoy yourselves while organising the show, because it is probably the highlight of your university life and definitely something that will stay with you forever.

– Jasmine Chung, University of Bath.

For further information, visit the University of Bath Chinese Student Society’s V-Show Facebook page