CALENDAR GIRLS – the musical is a ridiculously brilliant production
DESPITE the world dominance of the mobile phone most people still have a paper diary and – hopefully – a calendar on the wall at home. You know, for those important dates with destiny, like the six-monthly visit to the dentist or the holiday at Allonby.
I only mention this to make a strong suggestion: buy a ticket or, better still, tickets (if still available) to see Calendar Girls – the Musical at Keswick on Derwentwater’s Theatre by the Lake (TBTL) until September 5.
Get your ticket(s) and date sorted, write it in good old-fashioned ink in your diary and on the calendar on the wall and then start to look forward to your visit to the theatre.
You will not be disappointed.
Calendar Girls – the Musical is a ridiculously brilliant production. And apart from “brilliant” the two other words that immediately spring to mind in describing the show are “emotional” and “joyous.”
It is all those things and more. Based, of course (who doesn’t know the story), on true events, this is the legend of women from a WI in deepest Yorkshire who decided to bare their fruit scones for a calendar designed to raise money for a sofa for the waiting room of a hospital (Skipton General) where one of the WI women’s husbands had tragically died of cancer.
The cast is exceptional (special mentions to Christina Meehan and Karen Holmes in the principal roles), and the music and lyrics are superb. Unless you are made of cast iron, it will bring a tear to the eye and, more importantly, is joyful and will make you laugh a lot.
The audience gave a standing ovation at the end.
I don’t know what else to say really. That just about sums it up.
Oh yes, I could mention that the writer’s (Tim Firth and Gary Barlow, direction by Paul Robinson) attention to detail is wonderful. It brought back personal memories of talks (hopefully not too boring) I gave as an editor and writer many years ago to the sparse ranks of the WI movement at various village halls in Cumbria where the heating was sometimes this side of the Arctic and the slide projector linked to the ark.
And at the end of the talk (would the elderly woman in the front row please not impersonate a Venus flytrap, mouth agape and gently nodding off) I was asked to judge a wild kaleidoscope of competitions (represented in Calendar Girls by best celebrity created out of a fir cone).
I loved the reference in the performance to a WI member’s creation of ‘Yul Brynner made from an egg’, showing a lack of effort.
There was so much to enjoy and appreciate in ‘Calendar Girls’ and there was a professional debut also from Keswick’s very own Leah Montgomery. She had presence and will go far.
Last but not least, I must mention the nudity (special mention here to an ‘enhanced’ Pippa Duffy in the role of Celia, the former air hostess who had surgically “upgraded her baggage allowance”). The ‘nudity’ was all done in the best possible taste with a remarkable flash of the camera but not too much else. The cast had clearly mastered the art of discretion behind a wall of silver light reflectors, sheets, and assorted confectionery/flora, the latter principally sunflowers.
But it is surprising how a couple of quite large and strategically placed iced cakes, with a bright red nipple (sorry, I meant to say cherry) on top, can represent the real thing.
Ooooeeeerrr missis!
*Keith Richardson, the writer of this review for the TBTL website, is a former newspaper and magazine editor and the author of four award-winning Lakeland-themed books, ‘Ivver Sen’, Jack’s Yak’, ‘Joss’ and ‘The Greta ’. In the summer months he can usually be found working as a volunteer groundsman on the cricket square at Keswick CC. Or roaming local bakeries looking for iced buns.