With the promise of star prizes, a jolly good sing-song and assorted beverages of the alcoholic variety, plus the opportunity to engage our brains in something a little more taxing than ‘Deal or No Deal’ we all arrived excitedly and full of expectation at the Black Cap with a £5 note burning a hole in our little sweaty hands for the Soprano Section’s fundraiser.
Emelda was quiz mistress for the evening and, heckling aside, held court fantastically. Needless to say, no encouragement was needed to steer clear of winning the wooden spoon, and by half-time there were only 3 points separating the first three teams. Everyone fought a valiant fight through a selection of questions ranging from the original presenter of Family Fortunes# to naming the 5 four lettered elements on the Periodic table*. As a result, it ended with two teams drawing for second place, whilst the winners received a fine selection of vino, much to the detriment of the rest of us.
It was at this point that we chose to unshackle ourselves from the burden of thinking and really let fly by revving up the karaoke machine. Being the singing fashionistas of the LGBT world, there’s no stopping a Pinky from grabbing the mike and unleashing our talents to the world (although I believe the ‘good girls’ amongst us went home at this point)! As you can imagine, there was much dance floor gyration, refilling of pint glasses and heterosexual belly biting (he was lifting his shirt up – what else was he expecting to happen in a gay bar!) as we bopped our way through Mac The Knife, Shout, Chain Reaction, Suspicious Minds and many other assorted camp classics.
A glorious night was had by all, and I’ll be surprised if anyone can remember half of what actually went on! But who would have thought that such a sweet, demure, and ladylike section such as the Sopranos could hold a night of unadulterated, dark and shameless fun?
#Bob Monkhouse
*Gold, Iron, Lead, Neon, Zinc
by Carol
Teno