Glee. To openly express delight. To be exuberantly joyful. Did you know that glee also referred to a form of 18th century unaccompanied song written for three or more voices? If you did know that… well, you might be what some call a ‘gleek’.
Somewhere else you’ll find a whole host of gleeks is in the new Channel Ten feel good comedy series Glee. This show has ‘taken America by storm’ and has now firmly cemented itself into the hearts of nearly every Australian capable of turning on a television set.
Part of the show’s charm is that it features a band of underdogs banding together through music and dance to reach for the stars. They are members of a high school glee club, an American notion based on 1950’s barber shop quartets and that all encompassing competitive spirit US TV schools seem to thrive on.
‘A Glee club is mainly a show choir,’ explained Glee cast member Chris Colfer, who plays the rather effeminate Kurt. ‘It’s a competitive group of kids or people, sometimes adults, that compete with song and dance.
‘It’s usually rare to find Glee clubs in the United States, too. It’s kind of transitioned into this competitive world of song and dance, nowadays.’
Of his character, Colfer – whose own voice is as high as that of his character on the show – says he’s the ‘the fashionable male soprano’ of the cast. ‘He’s very vogue, and he thinks that he is superior to everyone else at the school.
‘And I think that maybe he has to, to get by, because he’s definitely teased a lot, and tossed into dumpsters, and that sort of thing. But he goes through a little bit of an identity realisation; he comes out to his best friend and his father, he falls in love, but it isn’t reciprocated, and he wants to sing a song desperately in the glee club, but they won’t let him because of his voice – there’s lots and lots of good material coming up for him.’
The opening scenes of Glee saw Colfer’s Kurt exclaim to a group of bullies that they couldn’t ditch him in a dumpster because he was wearing new season Marc Jacobs. It’s set the scene for the season (which originally only been commissioned to produce 13 episodes… now they’re on to season 2).
Fashion to watch out for? A huge fuzzy Gucci sweater and a Dolce & Gabbana see-through raincoat. ‘I think that rain coat cost more than, you know, half the show’s budget,’ laughed Colfer.
It’s not just the fashion to keep an eye out for. There are some amazing songs and dance routines which are sure to get the toes tapping. Among them? Beyonce’s Single Ladies, led by Colfer, in the third episode promises to be a hoot.
‘That dance is a lot of fun to do,’ Colfer says of the film clip’s routine. ‘I had to learn it; it takes forever to learn it, but once you have it down, it’s a lot of fun to do, leotard and all. And a vest and a glove. It’s great.’
There’s also that incredible – and seemingly inappropriate – version of Salt ‘n’ Pepa’s Push It, which some viewers have undoubtedly already seen as a promo clip for the show.
‘Push It is probably one of my favourite ones, probably one of our favourite ones, because it’s the most vulgar, risqué thing I think many of us have ever done in our lives. We have Push It, we have Somebody to Love, we have Kelly Clarkson, some Queen, some John Lennon – we’ve got a little bit of everything coming your way.’
Colfer believes that part of the show’s success lies in the fact that it appeals to a group of kids who have never had anything appeal to them before. ‘It celebrates the inner nerd in everyone, and also the inner theatre nerd in everyone. I was a major, major gleek, as they call it, in high school, and there really has never been anything that has really captured that genre.
‘High School Musical was musical, and it was a bunch of kids, but it didn’t really celebrate the theatre or the performing arts kids. It kind of showed oh, you know, jocks can do anything. It’s great to be a part of something that appeals to such a new audience for the first time.’
Glee appears on Channel 10, 7.30pm every Thursday night.
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