Calendar Girls The Musical continues at New Wimbledon Theatre, London until 5 October 2019 and then tours until 23 November.
Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Ee bah gum, as Yorkshire folk actually don’t say, this musical version of the true story about the good ladies of the WI making a calendar of tasteful nudes to fund a hospital sofa in the name of a member’s husband taken early by cancer is a reet good night out.
Calendar Girls The Musical, with some first-class songs by Take That’s Gary Barlow and a witty but moving script by Barlow and long-time friend Tim Firth, is a cracker. It is a show with a warm heart, a show that makes you laugh, a show that makes you cry.
Wimbledon kicked off the final segment of the 2019 tour with the evergreen Ruth Madoc, who has done the part before, taking over from Lesley Joseph as Jessie, the lady who won’t have her “front bottom” in the picture as “that is reserved for the man I love”.
As the widowed Annie, Sarah Jane Buckley has hard acts to follow in Joanna Riding (2017 West End cast) and Anna-Jane Casey (2018-19 UK tour) but has a lovely voice and some great material to work with.
Two songs stand out: ‘Scarborough’, wondering what’s the point of going on holiday alone, and ‘Kilimanjaro’, about the grief mountain she has to climb, cooking for one instead of two, bus journeys with an empty seat beside her and the awful finality of opening the envelope returning her John’s rings. Phil Corbitt plays her dying husband with dignity.
Lisa Maxwell is Celia, the former air hostess whose marriage meant moving to Yorkshire – Denise Welch’s part earlier in the tour. Celia owes some of her glamour to the odd nip and tuck as she reveals in the amusing ‘I’ve Had a Little Work Done’.
Julia Hills is the timid Ruth who needs help from the vodka bottle (‘My Russian Friend and I’) to pluck up the courage to disrobe for photographer Lawrence (Derek Elroy) in one of the funniest episodes, while Sue Devaney (excellent as Cora) and Judy Holt (Marie) are others new or relatively new to the show.
But Rebecca Storm has stayed on as livewire Chris, whose husband married her not for “a smooth path” but for “crazy paving” and, boy, can she sing! A Yorkshire lass herself, she dominates the stage with her big personality.
Brought in for the musical, there’s a new generation storyline with Isabel Caswell (Jenny), Tyler Dobbs (Tommo) and Danny Howker (Danny) dealing with puppy love.
This bittersweet story struck a chord with the women of Wimbledon (who seemed to outnumber men by four to one). They clapped like mad when Madoc delivered ‘What Age Expects’ loud and proud.
The biggest cheer was of course reserved for the finale when they took their kit off, modesty mostly preserved by a protective array of cakes and sunflowers.
The musical is better structured than either the movie, where the nude bits came at the start and the play, where it came as the climax to Act I.
It was all very genteel and uplifting, this celebration of the female body, of women themselves, of conquering inhibitions, of marriage, community spirit and countryside, so gloriously evoked by set designer Robert Jones with its handsome Yorkshire Dales backdrop, stone bridge, working gate and later on a tree to signify a scene change.
Director Matt Ryan ticks every box in getting the absolute best out of everyone and the score is in the capable hands of musical director Nick Pinchbeck’s six-strong band.
And thanks to this lovable show and worldwide sales of the calendar, £5 million has been raised by these amazing women for Bloodwise, the blood cancer charity. Bravo!
Jeremy Chapman
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