Forfar Academy staff are on track to become internet stars with a send-up of the hit show Glee.
Teachers this week revealed their parody of one of the show’s most famous songs, and their video rocketed past 3000 YouTube hits in just 24 hours.
Their musical theatre efforts have elevated the teachers to cool status among pupils, who have flooded the site with comments on the clip.
The song choice of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’ has proved an inspired selection by those behind the closely-guarded performance and they have been delighted by the reaction.
Drama teacher Paul Harrison and colleague Pauline Gibb were the brains behind the idea and told The Courier the ‘instant’ success had been six months in the making.
“We both started here this year and wanted to try to start a Glee Club off, so we talked about how we could best go about publicising it,” said Paul.
“Normally you would put up a poster or something to try to get pupils interested, but we just thought we would try and do something a little bit different and came up with the idea of getting other teachers involved in doing a parody of the song, which has been a huge hit through the show.”
Paul said study leave for senior pupils allowed them to retain the element of surprise.
Staff lined up for the cameras after school and in quiet moments, throwing themselves into the lip-syncing spirit of the project with a theatrical abandon which would surely impress the cast of the original.
“It was a nightmare trying to keep it quiet,” continued Paul. “We really thought the surprise element was something that we wanted to keep intact so that we didn’t lose the impact, and it got pretty difficult towards the end.”
They managed to keep it under wraps until the clip was shown to pupils this week, and their great reception quickly extended online.
Paul said, “The pupils were totally surprised, but it was an amazing reaction and it has been well worth the effort because of the buzz it has created around the school.
“In the end we had 20 to 30 teachers involved because we thought the more staff we could get to take part the more it might be enjoyed, but we never expected anything like this.
“When I logged on to YouTube last night I saw it had had 300 hits and thought that was great, but when I got told this morning it was about 3000 I couldn’t believe it.”
With the video now racing past 8000 views, there may be more like it in future.
“Hopefully it’ll help get pupils interested in the Glee Club and we’re trying to get new technologies into our teaching so maybe we’ll be doing more videos like this,” Paul added.
The video’s creators said they were delighted with the support of staff in helping pull off the surprise hit, including Forfar Academy rector Melvyn Lynch, whose finale to the song is a show-stopper.
“We wanted to get staff from all departments and from all levels to take part, and Mr Lynch was a great support for this,” Paul added. “His piece took us about five minutes to do and, for me, it completely steals the show.”
But while the Forfar Academy crew are off to a promising start with their video, they have some way to go yet to match the exploits of teachers and pupils at Bell Baxter High School in Cupar.
After The Courier reported their story in May, the Fife school’s YMCA-themed flashmob video has now been seen an incredible 362,000 times after being picked up by media across the world.