Stars bare all for Calendar Girls
Stars bare all for Calendar Girls
By Tim Firth
The Lowry, Mon 20 – Sat 25 October 2008
Press night: Mon 20 October, 7.30pm
North West audiences will have the chance to see the stage version of Calendar Girls in the flesh before London’s West End. They can anticipate the fun with the photo line-up of the cast which recreating the famous cheeky image which helped to shoot the film version to international success. The stage show heading for the North West will have an all-star cast including Lynda Bellingham, Patricia Hodge, Sian Phillips, Gaynor Faye, Brigit Forsyth, Julia Hills and Elaine C Smith.
A group of extraordinary women, members of a very ordinary Yorkshire WI, persuade one another to pose for a charity calendar with a difference! Puzzling their husbands, mortifying their children and riding the wrath of an outraged WI, they inadvertently spark a global phenomenon. As interest in the calendar snowballs, the ladies find themselves revealing more than they’d ever planned.
Lynda Bellingham is probably best known for the long running series of OXO television ads and as Helen Herriot in All Creatures Great and Small. Her recent credits include Sugar Mummies at the Royal Court as well as presenting ITV’s afternoon chat show Loose Women. Patricia Hodge’s recent credits include Boeing Boeing in the West End and His Dark Materials at the National Theatre. The legendary Sian Phillip’s career has spanned over fifty years and her innumerable credits include an unforgettable performance in I, Claudius and her Tony Award nominated one woman show Marlene.
Gaynor Faye’s credits include The Chase and Playing the Field as well as competing in the first series of Dancing on Ice. Best known as Thelma in Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads, Brigit Forsyth’s theatre credits include The Triumph of Love at the Royal Exchange Manchester and Jerusalum at the West Yorkshire Playhouse. Julia Hills starred in the BBC’s long running comedy 2 Point 4 Children. Elaine C Smith is one of Scotland’s most popular stars though she is probably best known to audiences south of the border as Rab C Nesbitt’s wife. Joan Blackham, Abby Francis, Gary Lilburn, Gerard McDermott and Carl Prekopp complete the twelve strong cast.
Tim Firth has adapted the screenplay of his smash hit Mirimax film for the stage. The film was released in 2003 and was an instant hit at the box office, becoming the number one grossing film in the UK on its release. Tim’s other credits include the films Blackball and Kinky Boots and the award winning Preston Front for the BBC. His theatre credits include the plays Neville’s Island, The Safari Party, The Flint Street Nativity and the Olivier Award winning musical Our House.
Calendar Girls is directed by Olivier Award winner Hamish McColl. Hamish is probably best known as half of the double act The right size, who from 1988 created a unique style of comic theatre culminating in the smash hit The Play What I Wrote which won the Olivier Award for Best Entertainment. Other credits include Hysterium in Edward Hall’s production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum at the National Theatre.
Posted on Thursday, 07 August 2008 under Press Theatre Press