Calendar Girls cool off at Chelsea ...but keep their kit on
THEY have made a habit of posing without clothes.
But all that original Calendar Girls Tricia Stewart and Ros Fawcett took off at the Chelsea Flower Show yesterday were their shoes. In their trademark black outfits with a sunflower corsage, they joined three of the stars from The Girls, the West End musical version of their exploits.
Mrs Stewart, 68, and Mrs Fawcett, 67, were Miss October and Miss November in the famous naked calendar shot in 1999 by Women’s Institute members.
The group from Rylstone, near Skipton, North Yorkshire, raised more than £3million for leukaemia and lymphoma research and inspired the 2003 hit comedy film Calendar Girls, starring Helen Mirren and Julie Walters, on which the musical is based.
Yesterday Mrs Stewart and Mrs Fawcett took the opportunity to cool off in a water feature as they posed with The Girls cast members Claire Machin, Debbie Chazen and Sophie-Louise Dann in the Welcome to Yorkshire show garden.
As crowds gathered, Mrs Stewart joked: ‘They expect us to get our kit off. We’re not doing any of that any more, it’s for the actresses to do now.’
They drank Yorkshire sparkling wine and ate Wensleydale cheese to promote their home county – and revealed their hopes for The Girls, which was written by Tim Firth and Take That’s Gary Barlow. Mrs Stewart said: ‘We’re supporting the musical and are keeping our fingers crossed it gets to Broadway. The Americans are interested in it.’