Calendar Girls on song for summer and autumn
- Alan Hulme
- 2 hours ago
- 2 min read
Calendar Girls the Musical will be the summer season show at Scarborough's Stephen Joseph Theatre (June 27-July 25), before heading for Theatre by the Lake in Keswick (August 6-September 5) and Bolton Octagon (October 8-31).
By Gary Barlow and Tim Firth, the show is based on the true story and hit film about a group of Yorkshire women who create a fabulous and funny nude calendar to raise funds for charity.
SJT's artistic director, Paul Robinson, says: "Our new, in-the-round staging of Calendar Girls the Musical brings the audience into the heart of the Rylstone Women's Institute. This intimate production will create a unique, shared experience - reminiscent of gathering round in a community hall or a friend's living room, allowing for a deeper connection to the characters and creating an atmosphere that fully immerses everyone in the story of these ordinary women doing something quite extraordinary."
Tim Firth and Gary Barlow said: “As writers, one of the most exciting things is when someone comes up with a new way of staging something you have created.
"When Paul described his vision for the new production it was instantly clear he was talking about something we’d never seen before and, to be honest, didn't think possible.”
Tim Firth adds: “Scarborough was the first place to give me a main stage, and the plays of Alan Ayckbourn [mostly premiered at the playwright's SJT "home"] embody so much of what I love about theatre.
"It was en route to a meeting with Alan about a new play, that I called into a Wharfedale fete and bought a calendar from a WI stall. Now, years later, it seems wonderfully fitting to be starting a production of a musical about that story at the Stephen Joseph Theatre.”