I was most excited when I heard the pinkies needed some more altos to sing in Admiralty Arch before Christmas this year. I thought, “Gosh, its not just something to drive under, you can go inside, who knew?” I looked up some history on the Arch, apparently it was originally commissioned by King Edward VII in memory of his mother, Queen Victoria. Its there to divide the hectic traffic of Trafalgar Square from the mall. Oh and apparently it has nothing whatsoever to do with the navy.
It also doesn’t have an obvious front door. This I learned when I starting walking around the arch looking for a door in. I considered it was a Harry Potter, Kings Cross platform 8 1/2 type deal and thought it might be interesting to try and run at an arch and see if I was magically transported inside. I found an open door with a security guard instead and introduced myself “Hi I’m with the Pink Singers, we’re doing a concert here tonight?” Two delightful women from the civil service (who turned out later to be audience members) were with me. The security guard said he hadn’t heard anything about a concert, didn’t have a clue were we were to go and said the office buildings in the arch were closed for the evening. One of the nice audience members persisted in questioning him until he phoned somebody and found out were were to go to the door across the arch. Excuse me for not knowing where the doors to the arch thing are, sheesh.
We dodged the taxis (eeek don’t ever do that, walk around the arch on foot, it’s really dangerous) and found the other door. These security guards were expecting us and were very friendly and gave us badges and everything.
Our audience were lesbian and gay civil servants and were very warm and enthusiastic about our performance. Michael and Lynn managed to whip us into shape and we sang from our winter repertoire and added some Christmas carols. We even got and encore and delighted the audience with the dancing rendition of the Madonna Medley.
We joined the audience members for nibbles and wine after wards and a good time was had by all. I’m sure we did Queen Victoria proud.
by Cilla
Altos