FRENCH CLUB AT HIGH SCHOOL

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28414, 22 October 1957, Page 10

FRENCH CLUB AT HIGH SCHOOL

Play Presented

Members of the Frenchspeaking community of Christchurch were entertained by the French Club of the Christchurch Boys’ High School on Saturday evening. The meeting gave the boys an opportunity to present a French play to an adult French audience. The play—a one-act comedy "Haute les Mains,’’ by Bernard Gervaise, was studied and rehearsed by the club during its weekly meetings. Gaston, a burglar, was played by Donald Brash, Fumerol, the owner of the house, by John Burrows, and Suzanne, Gaston’s mistress, by Allan Goodman.

The three boys gave a remarkably mature presentation and their pronunciation was creditable. The master-in-charge- of the club, Mr Meredith Money, said that the play had given boys with a special interest in oral French an opportunity to appreciate the force of idiomatic expression and, to imagine themselves as Frenchmen using such expressions. The study of the play and the learning of the lines would help them in their study. Alistair Stokes, accompanied by Mr Clifton Cook, sang several songs in French. His style was effortless. A film, “Aux Jardins de la France,” lent by the French Embassy in Wellington, was shown.

Members of the audience afterwards expressed their enthusiasm both for the quality of the play and for the purpose of the evening. The club affiliated this year with the newly-formed Association Francais des Ecolcs de Canterbury. an organisation formed by Dr. R. T. Sussex, professor of modern languages at Canterbury University College, to encourage the study of French in secondary schools.