Through mesmerising music and seamlessly woven archival and film footage, Shirley J. Thompson’s celebratory opera, Women of the Windrush, portrays inspirational narratives from the lives of women who travelled to the UK from the West Indies between the 1940s and the 1960s, when persons from those countries were invited by the British government to assist in the rebuilding of post-war Britain.
The stage work is a re-imagining of Thompson’s film, Memories in Mind: Women of the Windrush Tell Their Stories (1992, British Film Institute). The renowned Birmingham-based soprano, Abigail Kelly, leads the performance.
