REVIEW: Girlfriends at Bishopgate Institute

LTMO under the conductor Freddie Tapner have followed up their wonderful concert version of Camelot at the London Palladium in October with a three performance concert version of Howard Goodall's Girlfriends at the Bishopgate Institute, where they are the resident orchestra. If you missed it you can buy a cast recording CD soon. Unlike Camelot where so many of the songs are well known, the music of Girlfriends written in 1985 are not as familiar and listening to the CD would certainly have helped get into the concert quicker. However once the characters and their relationships are established, we settled back to enjoy the melodic tunes and fine performances of the star studded ensemble of singers.

Goodall based the story on one woman's memoirs of life in the Woman Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF); women who answered the call to join up as the men went to war. 150,000 signed up in 1941 and fulfilled a range of roles including packing the parachutes and air traffic controllers for the pilots. This is given extra poignancy by the concert narration of Group Captain Victoria Gosling, one of the highest ranking women in the RAF, who gives contextual background linked to the musical story line as well as recalling her own grandfather who was killed on his 40th mission. The story focuses on six of these women, how they adapted to the life and their relationships with the pilots.