Tim Firth’s stage adaptation of the hit film Calendar Girls will open in the West End on 4 April at the Noël Coward theatre after completing its current regional tour. Lynda Bellingham, Patricia Hodge, Sian Phillips, Gaynor Faye, Brigit Forsyth, Julia Hills and Elaine C Smith star in the Yorkshire set drama.
Calendar Girls is the moving story of members of the Woman’s Institute who shun their usual cake baking competitions and jam making in order to produce a nude calendar to raise money for Leukaemia Research. The calendar causes a stir and the women find the sudden media interest more challenging than they could have predicted.
Based on a true story, it began life as the 2003 award-winning film starring Helen Mirren and Julie Walters. Firth adapted his screenplay for the stage and the production opened in September at Chichester Festival Theatre.
Following Mirren’s Golden Globe-winning performance as the feisty Chris Harper on stage is Bellingham. Most familiar for her iconic 1980s Oxo adverts, Bellingham has since been a regular fixture on television appearing in shows including All Creatures Great And Small, Doctor Who, Second Thoughts and most recently guest presenting the ITV chat show Loose Women. She appeared on the London stage in 2007 at the Trafalgar Studios in Vincent River, before the play transferred to Broadway.
In the role of Annie Clarke, whose husband’s death is the inspiration behind the calendar is Hodge. A well respected stage actress, Hodge has appeared in numerous productions during her 30 year career. Plays include The Prime Of Jean Brodie, the Old Vic’s Dream Me A Winter, Boeing Boeing and The Country Wife at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. She has also appeared in films including Harold Pinter’s Betrayal and starred alongside John Hurt in The Elephant Man.
Monday to Saturday evenings @ 7:30pm, Wednesday @ Saturday matinees @ 2:30pm.
Running time - TBC
Booking until - 09/01/2010