In the Pink

In The Pink are a nine-strong, all-female, a cappella group from Oxford University and what a class act they are. The range of sounds they produce to back up their own arrangements is remarkable. The percussion section on Mamma Mia - all one of her - needs to be heard and seen to be believed.

They produce some surprisingly funky sounds and if you think that a group of nice white young ladies might sound faintly absurd doing down and dirty street music then don't worry, so do they. They happily send themselves up, occasionally slipping received pronunciation into wildly inappropriate places, but never at the expense of the song.

Their arrangements are delightful and executed with a well rehearsed slickness that always adds to the joy of the music. And joy is just the right word, add a little syllable to it and enjoy is clearly what they themselves are doing. Their moves are well thought through so that the shifting patterns within the group add almost as much to the songs as do their instrumental vocal sounds. So too the interplay between them, showing off their individual personalities even as they sing as a coherent group.

They are clearly a group of friends having fun and singing what they enjoy singing. In so doing they reach out and embrace their audience. It would have been worth going just for their Titanic moment but in fact there was so much more. This was an hour of pure, sparkling entertainment.