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Women Of The Windrush Patrick Studio Birmingham Hippodrome **** Merging documentary with modern opera,
the Women Of The Windrush is a hugely personal project for its creator,
award-winning composer and filmmaker Shirley J Thompson. Dedicated to
her own mother, who began a new life in the UK from the Caribbean, it
has that raw edge of emotion and honesty. Although Ms Thompson
made the film that's the backdrop to this production in 1992, she has
revisited it to add a musical score that resonates. Only on for two
nights in Birmingham as part of a Windrush 75th Anniversary
tour, Women Of The Windrush was performed in the intimate surroundings
of Birmingham Hippodrome's Patrick Studio on November 23 and 24. It's a short and simple 60 minute "celebratory"
opera that opens with cardboard boxes and furniture covered in dust
sheets. Soprano Abigail Kelly and pianist Melissa Morris go through the
belongings performing a mix of songs that are both soothing and suitably
jarring. These are interlaced with interviews from Ms Thompson's film
Memories in Mind: Women of the Windrush Tell Their Stories.
The film footage is mesmerising and the real
heart of this show - hearing from the real women from the Windrush
generation on their experiences, good and bad. With so many of that generation being lost,
capturing their memories and learning mistakes from the past is surely
one of their most important legacies. Some of their encounters will make
you shake your head but it's important to hear them, whatever generation
you belong to and I noticed there were some very young children in the
audience too. Kelly has stage presence and a fine voice and the
musical addition of the opera for this new production does add extra
depth on an emotional level. This opera may be short at just one hour
long(with no interval) but it packs a punch. A fitting way to mark the
75th anniversary of the Windrush's arrival to British shores
and the legacy of that generation. Alison Brinkworth 23-11-23 |
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