Viewing archives for Alumni Newsletter

The Founder’s Day cricket fixture between the old boys and the current First XI was a keenly fought affair this year – with the School team winning with just one ball to spare.

The Old Elizabethans batted first, amassing 139-6, with Sebastian Feszczur-Hatchett (OE 2007-2014) making an unbeaten 67 and his contemporary, Nikhil Patel, the next highest OE scorer, on 27.

For the School team, Harry Riley and Shahil Sheth both ended their innings not out, with 59 and 40 runs respectively. Between them, they thus put on almost three-quarters of the boys’ final total of 140-4 and saw the School XI through to victory.

The fixture is the annual Stanley Busby Memorial Cricket Match. A similar School vs Old Elizabethans game was played regularly in the early 20th century, but fell into abeyance. It was revived in 1984 for one year only as a retirement ‘gift’ to teacher Eric Shearly. Born in 1920, he was a former pupil who was closely associated with the School for 76 years and devoted much of his life to it. He died in 2005.

Then in 2012 the match was revived permanently by the Headmaster, Neil Enright, and given its present name in honour of the late Mr Busby, who was a QE parent and also a Governor from 1989-2011.

Russell Scott has forged a successful career as a performer, coach, musical theatre director and impresario – all built on his passion for music.

An early starter, by the time he was eight Russell (OE 1985–1988) had already begun his professional music training and at that age secured an entry in the Guinness Book of Records as the youngest member of the Musicians’ Union.

A year later, he had developed a talent as a cabaret organist and made two LPs, as well as appearing internationally on TV programmes including Thames TV’s charity Telethon.

Between the ages of 13 and 18, he established a reputation as an overall entertainer, gaining two residences and performing five nights a week – all while he was still at QE. Although he did not attend music college, he spent his School years studying music, passing examinations with The Royal Schools of Music and attending the well-known Sylvia Young Theatre School.

After leaving QE, he threw himself into his career and, in 1995, after several years performing cabaret around the UK, Russell joined The London Philharmonic Choir. He performed many of the large-scale choral works, including Verdi’s Requiem, Gershwin’s Porgy & Bess, Beethoven’s Choral Symphony, Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony, Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust and Requiem. In addition, he was Librarian and Marketing Manager for the London Philharmonic Choir and became one of its board directors (1997-1999).

Since turning fully professional as a classical music performer in 1999, Russell has sung with many of the UK’s leading choirs and has sung as an opera soloist, performing repertoire ranging from Tavener and Tippett to Puccini’s La Bohème and Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro.

He began voice-coaching in 2000, specialising in musical theatre – projects have included working on the BBC’s Celebrate Oliver! special, on Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and on Les Misérables.

Over the following years, Russell’s career continued to expand. In 2007-2008 he was Artistic Director of Songbirds, where he coached and developed young talent, while in 2008–2009 he co-created and produced The Voice of Tomorrow – a West End project developing and showcasing new talent with support from Channel 4 and The Royal Academy of Music. Russell establish the New Talent Spotlight agency in 2009, dedicated to finding, developing and giving opportunity to emerging professional performers. He has also received regular invitations to act as a judge for competitions around the UK. Russell has produced and directed in the West End and around the country, including shows such as Godspell in Concert.

In 2010, he helped form the Next Stage Choir and was invited to become its Chorus Director. In 2012, Russell and his wife, Denise, took over the choir full-time. Like Russell, she has been performing from an early age and has played many leading theatre roles. However, she combines her musical career with a talent for baking and has created a cake business.

In 2013, Russell became Chorus Director of Waddesdon Manor Choir. He regularly directs masterclasses, and has worked with choirs and ensembles around the UK including the acclaimed Military Wives Choir. He is currently involved with a series of workshops for the Royal Opera House’s Trailblazers project, which seeks to boost creative learning and pupil development in schools.

In addition to his entertainment and production company, Russell Scott Entertainment Limited, and New Talent Spotlight, he also runs A Life in Music, with Russell Scott – a website platform for performers seeking to improve their skills, which features podcasts, a Youtube Channel and a blog. He retains his membership of the Musicians’ Union and also belongs to British Equity and the Association of British Choral Directors.

• • A Life in Music can be found at www.alifeinmusic.com; Russell’s Twitter address is @RussellScottUK

Frankie Vu combines a career as a live sports host and a presenter on the CBBC and Disney XD children’s channels with life as a professional in the world of freestyle football.

Frankie (Francis), who attended QE from 2000 to 2008, once raced from an AS examination straight to Manchester to appear in a music video – an early highlight of a media career that remains just as fast-paced today.

In the video, for The Way I Are (sic) by the American rapper, producer and DJ, Timbaland, Frankie is seen performing as a freestyler. Freestyle football is the art of self-expression with a football, with players performing tricks using various parts of their body.

“I was still at QE when I won the UK football freestyle championship in 2006,” he says. “This actually stemmed from a serious sports injury that I had sustained the previous year: I found that football freestyle was a good way to work on my rehab during the long period I had to spend away from team sports.

“I fell in love with the process of getting something wrong so many times and of eventually succeeding, but in my own time and on my terms.”

On leaving QE, Frankie studied English Language & Communication at King’s College London.

“I was unsure what I wanted to do after university, so during the holidays I completed two summer internships at Centrica and Barclays. Although I enjoyed both, I wasn’t convinced that either was a good ‘fit’.

“However, in my final year I had attended a talk on careers in the media. One thing led to another and eventually I was invited to screen-test for Disney.  Then – and this is a very condensed version of the story! – I secured my first TV contract at the end of the summer.”

Since then, he has been a host for the fencing and taekwondo events at London Olympics and for the wheelchair fencing at the 2012 Paralympic Games, as well as for other live sporting events, including rugby and NFL. He currently hosts at Arsenal’s Champions League home matches, interviewing stars from the past for its Champions Club.

His current TV work includes exploring the world of the future in CBBC’s Technobabble show – an interest he has also demonstrated in videos from the Mobile World Congress and through fronting previews for the Gadget Show Live.

Frankie has his own YouTube channel and is very much at home in the online world, being close to well-known vloggers including Zoella (Zoe Elizabeth Sugg), Marcus Butler, Caspar Lee and Jim Chapman.

• • Frankie can be contacted through social media on @theFrankieVu

One of TV’s most extravagant personalities, Judge Rinder, has recently diversified into a new series dealing with real-life crimes.

In Judge Rinder’s Crime Stories, a new ten-programme series that finished earlier this month, Robert Rinder (OE 1989–1994) delved into cases which ranged from a couple duped by a surrogate mother to the murder of a young woman and a doorstep attack involving sulphuric acid.

It is less than two years since he first appeared on our screens with Judge Rinder – a daytime show portraying a fictional small-claims court where he presides over cases such as disputes over consumer issues, personal and business fall-outs and allegations of negligence. With its combination of hapless plaintiffs and the stream of acerbic comment from the bench, the show was an instant hit for ITV and for Robert, who, although not a judge, was already a very successful criminal barrister.

“I practiced for a decade and a half, doing very serious national and international criminal law, including lots of high-profile cases,” he told Alumni News.

The website of 2 Hare Court, his London barristers’ chambers, states that his practice focuses primarily on international fraud, money laundering and other forms of financial crime.

He was instructed by the British Government as counsel to the Turks and Caicos Islands’ Special Investigation and Prosecution Team, which was established by the Foreign Office to prosecute allegations of bribery, international corruption and fraud. In the UK he has advised on and appeared in cases involving fraud against the NHS, counterfeit medicines, multi-million-pound money laundering and pension fraud.

However, he by no means confined himself to financial cases. Robert was also regularly involved in murder cases and other cases of serious violence, usually appearing for the defence. These included the manslaughter of detainees in Iraq by British servicemen and the New Year’s murders of 17-year-old Letisha Shakespeare and 18-year-old Charlene Ellis in a drive-by shooting in Birmingham in 2003.

Indications of Robert’s talent for performance were clearly evident during his school years, demonstrated by his involvement in the drama club, which included title roles in productions such as Bugsy Malone, and involvement in dance at the School.  At the age of 14, Robert was successful in securing a place at the National Youth Theatre – where he joined the likes of Matt Lucas and David Walliams and starred opposite a young Chiwetel Ejiofor in a production of Julius Caesar.

While reading Politics and History at Manchester University, he at first continued with his ambition to be an actor, and it was there that he met fellow student Benedict Cumberbatch. Although Robert abandoned acting and took up debating instead, he and Cumberbatch became fast friends. In 2013 Cumberbatch managed to have himself ordained so that he could officiate at Robert’s open-air wedding in Ibiza to Seth Cummings, a fellow barrister. And Robert was in turn one of Cumberbatch’s three best men when he married Sophie Hunter, the theatre and opera director and playwright.

Robert excelled in inter-varsity debates, winning international competitions, and in his studies: he gained a double-first, enabling him to achieve the rare feat of going straight from university into a pupillage in barristers’ chambers.

He enjoyed the law and built a successful practice in the years after he was called to the Bar in 2001.

But he found himself increasingly drawn to television. In his spare time, he dabbled in script-writing and pondered possible formats. And, in a serendipitous turn of events, when he pitched (unsuccessfully) to do an updated version of the 1970s drama series Crown Court, he came to the attention of ITV bosses who were looking for the right person to front a UK version of Judge Judy, the long-running and hugely successful US daytime show.

His courtroom show, with its gowns and gavel, has proved to be the perfect foil for Robert’s impressive intellect and innate theatricality. And while the gavel may not be an authentic element of a British courtroom, the law certainly is: he is proud of the show’s accuracy in all matters legal.

In a review of Judge Rinder for the Radio Times, journalist Michael Buerk wrote: “…he is very smart indeed…and often very, very funny. His grip on each case seems total. His ability to summarise, simplify, condense, can be a joy to watch. The way he rips gaily through the stumbling obfuscations is thoroughly entertaining, if cruelly one-sided.

“The programme’s real USP [Unique Selling Point], though, is that he doesn’t suffer fools gladly, and most of the people brought up before him are clearly complete idiots.” Among the more famous of his waspish comments are: “That’s what’s called a Pyrrhic victory. Look it up,” and: “There’s a lovely phrase and, let me tell you, in Darlington they talk of little else. It’s called caveat emptor,” and, to a bride in a dispute with a wedding photographer, “If you’d been at the Last Supper, you’d have asked for ketchup.”

Robert is clear on the lessons to be learnt from the show, such as the importance of putting things in writing: “Never trust people, always trust paper. I’d marry a piece of paper if I could.”

A fitness enthusiast, he has run marathons in New York, London and the Swiss Alps.

His book Rinder’s Rules: Make the Law Work For You! was published last October. It dispenses dos and don’ts on making complaints and looks at everyday legal issues.

It has been widely reported – though not yet confirmed – that he is to perform in this year’s Strictly Come Dancing, which is due to start in September.

Russell Scott has built a successful career as a performer, coach, musical theatre director and impresario on his passion for music.

An early starter, by the time he was eight Russell (OE 1985–1988) had already begun his professional music training and at that age secured an entry in the Guinness Book of Records as the youngest member of the Musicians’ Union.

A year later, he had developed a talent as a cabaret organist and made two LPs, as well as appearing internationally on TV programmes including Thames TV’s charity Telethon.

Between the ages of 13 and 18, he established a reputation as an overall entertainer, gaining two residences and performing five nights a week – all while he was still at QE. Although he did not attend music college, he spent his School years studying music, passing examinations with The Royal Schools of Music and attending the well-known Sylvia Young Theatre School.

After leaving QE, he threw himself into his career and, in 1995, after several years performing cabaret around the UK, Russell joined The London Philharmonic Choir. He performed many of the large-scale choral works, including Verdi’s Requiem, Gershwin’s Porgy & Bess, Beethoven’s Choral Symphony, Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony and Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust and Requiem. In addition, he was Librarian and Marketing Manager for the London Philharmonic Choir and became one of its board directors (1997-1999).

Since turning fully professional as a classical music performer in 1999, Russell has sung with many of the UK’s leading choirs and has sung as an opera soloist, performing repertoire ranging from Tavener and Tippett to Puccini’s La Bohème and Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro.

He began voice-coaching in 2000, specialising in musical theatre – projects have included working on the BBC’s Celebrate Oliver! special, on Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and on Les Misérables.

Over the following years, Russell’s career continued to expand. In 2007-2008 he was Artistic Director of Songbirds, where he coached and developed young talent, while in 2008–2009 he co-created and produced The Voice of Tomorrow – a West End project developing and showcasing new talent with support from Channel 4 and The Royal Academy of Music. Russell establish the New Talent Spotlight agency in 2009, dedicated to finding, developing and giving opportunity to emerging professional performers. He has also received regular invitations to act as a judge for competitions around the UK. Russell has produced and directed in the West End and around the country, including shows such as Godspell in Concert.

In 2010, he helped form the Next Stage Choir and was invited to become its Chorus Director. In 2012, Russell and his wife, Denise, took over the choir full-time. Like Russell, she has been performing from an early age and has played many leading theatre roles. However, she combines her musical career with a talent for baking and has built a cake business.

In 2013, Russell became Chorus Director of Waddesdon Manor Choir. He regularly directs masterclasses, and has worked with choirs and ensembles around the UK including the acclaimed Military Wives Choir. He is currently involved in a series of workshops for the Royal Opera House’s Trailblazers project, which seeks to boost creative learning and pupil development in schools.

In addition to his entertainment and production company, Russell Scott Entertainment Limited, and New Talent Spotlight, he also runs A Life in Music, with Russell Scott – a website platform for performers seeking to improve their skills, which features podcasts, a Youtube Channel and a blog. He retains his membership of the Musicians’ Union and also belongs to British Equity and the Association of British Choral Directors.

• A Life in Music can be found at www.alifeinmusic.com; Russell’s Twitter address is @RussellScottUK

   

To anyone who watches British TV, Judge Rinder probably needs no introduction. But what is less well-known is that Robert Rinder is also a distinguished international barrister.

One of TV’s most extravagant personalities, Robert (OE 1989–1994) raised his profile to new heights with his appearance in the BBC’s primetime Strictly Come Dancing throughout the autumn of 2016. With his professional dance partner, Oksana Platero, and appearing under the name ‘Judge Rinder’, he competed against other celebrities including former Chancellor Ed Balls, Olympic long-jumper Greg Rutherford and pop star Will Young. Robert performed well and was not eliminated until the 11th week of the 13-week series.

Robert first appeared on our screens in the summer of 2014 with Judge Rinder, which portrays a fictional small-claims court where he presides over cases such as disputes over consumer issues, personal and business fall-outs and allegations of negligence. With its combination of hapless plaintiffs and the stream of acerbic comment from the bench, the show was an instant hit for ITV and for Robert as well.

Although not a real-life judge, he was already a highly successful criminal barrister. “I practiced for a decade and a half, doing very serious national and international criminal law, including many high-profile cases,” he told the School.

The website of 2 Hare Court, his London barristers’ chambers, states that his practice focuses primarily on international fraud, money-laundering and other forms of financial crime.

He was instructed by the British Government as counsel to the Turks and Caicos Islands’ Special Investigation and Prosecution Team, which was established by the Foreign Office to prosecute allegations of bribery, international corruption and fraud. In the UK he has advised on and appeared in cases involving fraud against the NHS, counterfeit medicines, multi-million-pound money laundering and pension fraud.

However, he by no means confined himself to financial cases. Robert was also regularly involved in murder cases and other cases of serious violence, usually appearing for the defence. These included the manslaughter of detainees in Iraq by British servicemen and the New Year’s murders of 17-year-old Letisha Shakespeare and 18-year-old Charlene Ellis in a drive-by shooting in Birmingham in 2003.

Indications of Robert’s talent for performance were clearly evident during his School years, demonstrated by his involvement in the drama club, which included title roles in productions such as Bugsy Malone, and involvement in dance at the School. At the age of 14, Robert was successful in securing a place at the National Youth Theatre – where he joined the likes of Matt Lucas and David Walliams and starred opposite a young Chiwetel Ejiofor in a production of Julius Caesar.

While reading Politics and History at Manchester University, he at first continued with his ambition to be an actor, and it was there that he met fellow student Benedict Cumberbatch. Although Robert abandoned acting and took up debating instead, he and Cumberbatch became fast friends. In 2013 Cumberbatch managed to have himself ordained so that he could officiate at Robert’s open-air wedding in Ibiza to Seth Cummings, a fellow barrister. And Robert was in turn one of Cumberbatch’s three best men when he married Sophie Hunter, the theatre and opera director and playwright.

Robert excelled in inter-varsity debates, winning international competitions, and in his studies: he gained a double-first, enabling him to achieve the rare feat of going straight from university into a pupillage in barristers’ chambers.

He enjoyed law and built a successful practice in the years after he was called to the Bar in 2001.

But he found himself increasingly drawn to television. In his spare time, he dabbled in script-writing and pondered possible formats. And, in a serendipitous turn of events, when he pitched (unsuccessfully) to do an updated version of the 1970s drama series Crown Court, he came to the attention of ITV bosses who were looking for the right person to front a UK version of Judge Judy, the long-running and hugely successful US daytime show.

His courtroom show, with its gowns and gavel, has proved to be the perfect foil for Robert’s impressive intellect and innate theatricality. And while the gavel may not be an authentic element of a British courtroom, the law certainly is: he is proud of the show’s accuracy in all matters legal.

In a review of Judge Rinder for the Radio Times, journalist Michael Buerk wrote: “…he is very smart indeed…and often very, very funny. His grip on each case seems total. His ability to summarise, simplify, condense, can be a joy to watch. The way he rips gaily through the stumbling obfuscations is thoroughly entertaining, if cruelly one-sided.

“The programme’s real USP [Unique Selling Point], though, is that he doesn’t suffer fools gladly, and most of the people brought up before him are clearly complete idiots.” Among the more famous of his waspish comments are: “That’s what’s called a Pyrrhic victory. Look it up,” and: “There’s a lovely phrase and, let me tell you, in Darlington they talk of little else. It’s called caveat emptor,” and, to a bride in a dispute with a wedding photographer, “If you'd been at the Last Supper, you'd have asked for ketchup.”

Robert is clear on the lessons to be learnt from the show, such as the importance of putting things in writing: “Never trust people, always trust paper. I’d marry a piece of paper if I could.”

He has also diversified into a series dealing with real-life crimes. In Judge Rinder’s Crime Stories, a ten-programme series that aired in the summer of 2016, he delved into cases which ranged from a couple duped by a surrogate mother to the murder of a young woman and a doorstep attack involving sulphuric acid.

A fitness enthusiast, he has run marathons in New York, London and the Swiss Alps.

His book Rinder's Rules: Make the Law Work For You! was published in October 2015. It dispenses dos and don’ts on making complaints and looks at everyday legal issues.