Calendar Girls
We’re going to need considerably bigger buns!
Calendar Girls
Tue 9 – Sat 20 February 2010
Press night: Tue 9 February 2010, 7.30pm
Calendar Girls has triumphed in the West End and now the box office hit returns to The Lowry starring Lynda Bellingham with Gemma Atkinson, Judith Barker, Debbie Chazen, Letita Dean, Jan Harvey and Hannah Waterman.
A group of ordinary women, members of a very ordinary Yorkshire WI, spark a global phenomenon by persuading one another to pose for a charity calendar with a difference! As interest snowballs, the Calendar Girls find themselves revealing more than they’d ever planned.
Most recently Lynda Bellingham appeared on Strictly Come Dancing and she continues to present ITV’s popular afternoon chat show Loose Women. Other credits include the long running series of OXO television ads and Helen Herriot in All Creatures Great and Small.
Gemma Atkinson shot to fame playing Lisa Hunter in Hollyoaks and she joins the tour of Calendar Girls direct from the West End production. Judith Barker, one of the UK’s most versatile actresses can frequently be seen on our screens. She is, perhaps, best known as the upwardly mobile homewrecker Janet Reid on Coronation Street – a role she played for eight years. Seriously funny Debbie Chazen’s recent credits include Annie in the BBC comedy The Smoking Room and a whole host of comic creations in the BBC sketch show Tittybangbang.
Letitia Dean is best known as Sharon Watts in Eastenders a role she played from the opening episode for over ten years. Since leaving the show she has continued to make regular appearances back in Albert Square. In 2007 she was a much loved contestant on Strictly Come Dancing making it through to the quarter final. Hannah Waterman also starred in Eastenders as Ian Beale’s third wife Laura Dunn. Since she has also appeared on our screens in Doctors, Holby City, the Bill and alongside her father, Dennis Waterman, in New Tricks. Jan Harvey played Jan Howard in the BBC’s long running Howard’s Way. Other television credits include the BBC action series Bugs as well as Babs Woods in Family Affairs.
Tim Firth has adapted the screenplay of his smash hit Miramax 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 director for French and Saunders’ farewell tour Still Alive and the screenplay for Mr Bean’s Holiday.
Posted on Tuesday, 12 January 2010 under Press Theatre Press