Fern and the girls get by with the bare necessities
TeleVISIOn presenter Fern Britton wanted the bare facts when she met Gary Barlow to discuss appearing in the Calendar Girls musical.
‘I’m not singing, and I’m not naked, songwriter. am I?’ she asked the ‘not yet,’ was Barlow’s reply. the show is based on the (now exceedingly famous) true story of members of the Rylstone & District Women’s Institute in the yorkshire Dales, who posed nude for a special WI calendar iin 1999.
Barlow, who is currently y in Los angeles recording a new album, told me he and Calendar Girls’ writer tim Firth sat in on many of the auditions. ‘and played in them, Britton’s too.’ co- stars lorraine Bruce, Crowe, anna- Ruth Jane Madoc, Casey, Sara Rebecca baring Storm and all in Denise the show. Welch,, will be
But Britton’s character, Marie, the head of the local WI, remains fully clothed throughout (though at the curtain call she will be seen in a fluffy white bath robe). and she has no numbers to
perform, either. ‘I’m the antagonist who’s very disapproving of what the women are doing.
‘I’m always seen as the warm, cuddly, motherly one, so this is a change,’ Britton told me when she and the rest of the cast met for a poster shoot at a studio in West Kensington, London.
Producers David Pugh and Dafydd Rogers are taking Calendar Girls The Musical (formerly known as The Girls) on a 60-week tour of 33 UK theatres, starting with Leeds Grand Theatre on August 16.
Pugh confirmed that the character of Marie would not disrobe. ‘She represents the restraints and moral decency of the WI!’
The Olivier award-nominated show — a favourite of mine — had a six-month run at the Phoenix Theatre last year with a company that included Joanna Riding, Claire Moore, Debbie Chazen, Sophie-Louise Dann, Michele Dotrice, Claire Machin and Marian McLoughlin (who played Marie — Britton’s role).
The story centres on best friends Annie and Chris — played in the tour by consummate musical theatre actress Anna- Jane Casey and singer-actress Rebecca Storm — and their efforts to raise enough money to buy a sofa for the waiting room at the local hospital, where Annie’s husband died of leukaemia.
The real-life calendar women have helped to raise more than £5 million for Bloodwise, the leukaemia and lymphoma research charity, through collections and a percentage of the box office from the stage shows and film.
The #MeToo campaign against sexual harassment and for gender equality has made me see the musical through a different prism. Casey agreed that over the past few months ‘the world has changed’. DENISE
WELCh, who will play golf wife Celia, added that ‘ it’s not political, but if there was ever a time for a bunch of older women coming together, this is it’.
Lorraine Bruce, who starred in both the UK and U.S. versions of Kay Mellor’s The Syndicate, will sing a new number, written by Barlow and Firth for her choir mistress, Cora. Sara Crowe — an actress with some of the best comic timing in the business — will play troubled Ruth, who sings a heartbreaking number about her ‘Russian friend’.
Ruth Madoc, meanwhile, told me she’s thrilled to be getting her kit off . . . at last. She played Marie in an earlier production. ‘I didn’t take my clothes off, so I feel I’ve been upgraded and I can get my kit off — at 70-odd!’
I wondered if she felt in any way exploited. ‘No! I don’t mind stripping. I was in the Black And White Minstrel Show when I was 18 and you had to change costumes 17 or more times a night, at the side of the stage. You soon got used to wearing a G-string and fishnet tights!’
She recalled that if any of the male members of the cast tried it on with her, she’d just say: ‘No thank you!’ Or run the other way. ‘My mother always used to make me carry a great big hat pin in my lapel. But I never used it.
‘You have to be canny in this business. You can’t tell me this #MeToo campaign will stop it [sexual harassment] because it’s human nature. Men have got to be better educated.’
Firth revealed that he and Barlow spent eight months going through the script and songs to prepare for the new tour. They will do a workshop with the cast in May and carry out some nips and tucks, with particular reference to the characters of Celia and Cora (Bruce and Welch).
‘It’s unusual to have a scenario where the entire story is driven by six women,’ Firth told me, adding that he felt the show was about ‘personal empowerment’.
‘Every storyline is about being happier in your own skin. It’s about women rising up and saying: “This is who I am!” ’