Calendar Girls
By Gary Barlow and Tim Firth

Review by Louise Cannon (Lou)

Calendar Girls, a terrific, moving and uplifting musical that I can’t recommend highly enough! It will fill your heart with every emotion, but most of all, with warmth and joy! Find out the cast-list and my review below.

The Cast List: listed as character and then actor’s name.

Annie – Tanya Franks           Ruth – Maureen Nolan         Chris  – Amy Robbins
Marie – Paula Tappenden.   Celia – Marti Webb.               Cora  –  Honeysuckle Weeks
John – Colin R Campbell.     Rod – Graham MacDuff
Jessie – Lyn Paul (played by Jayne Ashley when I saw this)
Ensemble – Liz Carney, Victoria Hay, Andrew Tuton

Following the death of a much-loved husband, a group of ordinary women in a small Yorkshire Women’s Institute are prompted to do an extraordinary thing and set about creating a nude calendar to raise money for charity.

Review

Set in Yorkshire, Calendar Girls is moving, entertaining with friendship and hope at its heart. The subject of death is an emotional one, but this production also brings much humour and is filled with positivity. Each cast member’s performance seems to ooze with positive energy for the musical, that ripples throughout the audience.

From the expressive notes composed for the music to the rousing and the deeply moving lyrics and how they are sung with depth and meaning, even through the days of the week and months of the year, makes this an outstanding production.

The production is so relevant and so relatable to people in similar situations, when someone has cancer or has died from it. It shows life still goes on, with the shopping needing done etc after the hospital appointments and even then, there’s humour to be had, which is drawn in this musical, amongst the poignancy and sadness. It’s very cleverly done.

When it comes to the calendar, you can feel the tensions grow and how it isn’t a resounding yes from everyone at the WI and in-turn feel sorry for Chris, played by Amy Robbins. It is of course a triumph, but the audience is really taken through the emotions of trying to do something on a grand scale and the reasons people give, especially from Cora, played by Honeysuckle Weeks. The choreography is clever when it comes to the photoshoot and hats off to everyone for being so brave on-stage night after night.

All the cast were outstanding and enthralling to watch with excellent comic timing and poignancy and warmth of friendship that truly touches the heart.
as each cast member shows something of their character’s lives in hard-hitting themes, including alcoholism, depression, getting older, body image and the role of women in society. The mix of light and shade is exquisitely done.

Truly, every single cast member gave a strong and convincing performance!

The stand-out performance goes to Amy Robbins as Chris. She brings light and moving emotion and plays it with so much charisma, it is palpable. She plays Chris like she’d be someone you’d want to hang out with as there’s so many wonderful ideas, such as the calendar, done with energy, but also with a touch of uncertainty, which keeps it real. She owned the stage during her big numbers.
 Annie played by Tanya Franks, brings every ounce of emotion, along with realism and humour.
Colin R. Campbell, although you don’t see him for long, gives a very memorable performance
Paula Tappenden, Marti Webb and Maureen Nolan really show off their acting and vocal talents, which was a treat. They are superb!
Honeysuckle Weeks Graham MacDuff give a grounded performance.
As much as it was a pity Lyn Paul wasn’t on-stage for the evening I was there, her understudy, Jayne Ashley was great.

Every cast member puts the audience through the paces of various emotions from sadness at one side of the scale to sheer joy on the other in a strong performances

I highly recommend you get your diaries/calendars out and go forth and see the magnificent Calendar Girls.