Calendar Girls – Chichester Festival Theatre

Writer: Tim Firth

Director: Psyche Stott

Reviewer: Howard Holdsworth

The Public Reviews Rating:

The story of Calendar Girls is familiar to most of the nation over the age of 21, but this production managed to bring vitality and freshness to all aspects of the play, whilst pulling the emotions of the audience across the wide open spaces of the auditorium of the Festival Theatre. The WI world of the Dales is easily transported to the furthest corners of Britain as behind the façade of “Jam and Jerusalem” Tim Firth shows that a heart of pure gold beats strongly and selflessly. I suspect William Blake would have been bemused to see how 21st Century Britain now uses “Jerusalem” as he wrote it as a savage attack on the spread of industrialisation. As a counterpoint Firth makes us witness the peeling back of the layers to see the cancer within the society as represented by the almost unnoticed demise of John (movingly portrayed by Colin Tarrant).

And yet this is a play punctuated with great guffaws of laughter as we snuggle into those elements in human nature that make us burst forth. The assembled ladies of the society each in turn give cause for one and all to laugh. The cause of this mirth is brought to us through the highly skilled pen of Tim Firth for as always it is in the everyday that the best laughs are to be found. Against a simple backdrop of the inside of a village hall, complete with badminton lines, we witness the mutual mocking of the central characters as they begin to reveal information about both their pasts and their presents, in anticipation of the greater revelations yet to come. Cora (Letitia Dean) has a sauciness which interests, whilst Chris (Lynda Bellingham) seems to be the rebel in the class (that is until we realise that they are nearly all rebels). Her great friend Annie (Jan Harvey) is about to experience emotions which we all dread. These three were given fantastic support from Gemma Atkinson as Celia, Judith Barker as Jessie, Richenda Carey as Marie and Hannah Waterman as Ruth. The growth of Ruth from a shrinking violet to a full blown, thorny English rose was a joy to behold in an excellent performance from Ms Waterman.

The set pieces were carried out with expert ease. The passing of John was most moving – his final wordsspoken from a wheelchair giving way to his rising and departure in measured fashion from the front of the stage. The hilarity which abounds in the scene where the photographing takes place thankfully does not mask the dexterity of the actresses and the brilliant lead in the direction given by Psyche Scott. The cathartic viewing “up on yonder hill” of the sunflowers sown in John’s memory was beautifully realised and evocative of a wander through the Yorkshire Dales themselves.

The play is in turns uplifting, uproariously funny and very moving. To witness such courage and enterprise is a genuinely life-affirming experience. Catch it if you possible can, then pinch yourself to remember that it is a representation of a true story of love lost and of an ambition to celebrate life.