Calendar Girls - The Musical

Following suit from many before it, a much-loved play and film has received the conversion treatment to retell its tale, musical theatre style! This was the first time for me to see this title in its newfound musical form and though – for the most part – I was very excited to watch it, being honest (as ever), I was a tad apprehensive as I adore the play and the film respectively. On paper, being given a musical theatre makeover should make my heart zing though – with the many ridiculous remakes and adaptations dominating stage and screen recently I was perhaps being abnormally sensitive to see what’d been done to Calendar Girls.

 

We always have the ‘show of the moment’ in the amateur scene and when Calendar Girls (the play) was the hot title amongst our community a few years back I never got tired of seeing it. There are elements of this musical adaptation I don’t think are especially amiable and although mentioning them it should go without saying that my impression on the adaptation are not in any way a criticism or reflection on this production of it which was, I have to say, a sheer delight!

 

To start, the scenic design, based on Robert Jones West End design, was expertly crafted and so clever with drawers and cupboards built within a Yorkshire Wolds landscape. Pull on a knob and you’ve got an upright (piano!) and boom, we’re now in the church hall… so simple, quick and easy and a masterpiece of theatre design be it for a small space or not it was terrific and most impressive of all, was entirely constructed in-house. Incredibly lucky and fortunate to have this degree of vision and skill within your throng and (rightly so) using it to the full advantage, really excellent! The set was also lit beautifully too. I’m aware how uncommon it is for tech departments to get a remark in reviews unless something was amiss but the lighting design was especially noticed for the right reasons here so is deservedly worth a mention.  

 

Tracey Dawson’s Annie was natural, relatable, far from forced and as an audience member felt wholly at ease when she held the stage. A really lovely and tender performance. It’d be so easy for Annie to be drowned out or lost amongst the loftier characters, but Tracey had balanced her performance precisely to ensure she left an imprint in the show the way it ought to. Annie is the heart of the story and that certainly came across.

As Annie’s lifelong best pal Chris, Jill Ratcliffe exposed her prowess as an actress. Her character was her triumph riddled with an infectious ambition and Jill’s knack for comedic one liner’s embellished her performance terrifically. Chris’s musical numbers – the one towards the end of Act One specifically – have not been composed with much benevolence for the female voice and felt that Jill took one for the team here!

 

There wasn’t any member of this principal line-up who wasn’t demonstrating an array of favourable qualities. Angela Grady as Marie was a joy as the WI chair with a rod up her back proffering the packed audience with many a chuckle. Ethan Neale offered light, shade and humour demonstrating such prominent ability from a young actor as Danny. One of the favourable additions to the stage musical adaptation is the inclusion of the three teenage roles, they absolutely deserve to be there and now feel like they’re a missed feature in the play version.    

 

Dawn-Marie Nicholls relished her scene stealing moment as Ruth with a tremendous frenzy that had us all in stitches and admiration respectively! The materialistic Celia (with airs of a Real Housewife of Harrogate, if that’s even a thing??) was an absolute elation thanks to Elinor Hamilton. Shirley Harrison indisputably packed a punch as Jessie with a power that got the entire audience enthused, this was an exceptional example of how to make your part count – Fearless! Theatre magic! Splendid!      

 

John, the man who is pinnacle to the tale was tendered by Rob Haslam. Rob is someone who grasps when he’s supposed to be in the limelight or not and this part absolutely requires that understanding, I do believe that he possibly stepped back to let others shine a bit too graciously that he was in the shadows of everyone else, there’s nothing wrong with that in many respects if it’s what the part ‘is’ but I can’t help feeling as though he was denied of having his moments, it could be the adaptation that’s to blame for this which would be a more than fair response to my evaluation.      

 

Mark Rosenthal (Director) completely understood where the main focus was supposed to be at every moment and knew who was responsible for being the drive of each part of the production which helped the show no end to effortlessly and smoothly ride along on its journey. This adaptation is evidently way tricker to stage than its former stage version – which itself is a not an easy task – as Tim Firth simply does not consider the stage or how to accomplish its execution when he’s writing which makes the director’s job so much more difficult. Then we have Gary Barlow writing the songs (following in the footsteps of one of his major idols, Elton John, by venturing into composing for musical theatre - fine). Barlow’s songs stop the story to make way for a song, and frustratingly so! The songs in a musical should keep - not stop - the story moving along. Yes, it’s often worthwhile to let a character express their feelings through song at that moment but you just have to look at the play – the photo shoot happens at the end of act 1, in the musical we’re almost at the end of the entire show when that happens! And why are so many of the songs no more than a list…? Merely saying no more than “this is like that and that is like this” for three minutes!? That’s not really interesting, is it? But saying this, I was more pleasantly surprised with how the music felt more like a musical score than I had anticipated, I was expecting a selection of songs that sounded like pop song rejects to be shoehorned into a play but thankfully, the construction felt far more advanced than that! No, I’m not on a rant, I do have a point that I’m getting to with this - I empathise with the creative team, primarily the Director and Musical Director, by exposing what I’d identify as a hurdle to overcome, and there’s not much that can be done with the material you’re given and I applaud the team for making the best of a show that’s not as well constructed as I think the authors believe it to be.

 

Being a Yorkshire chap, I was pretty impressed with the accents throughout, for the most part we got a pretty generic base though, and it’s not a problem by any means, we did travel around the county a bit with some Hull, some Sheffield and the occasional Lancashire dropped in but that’s being majorly nit-picky and to be fair to everyone, that’s probably more authentic to have a range of dialects in one village. And also worth mentioning was how accents remained consistent whether talking or singing which isn’t as easy as it may appear, especially when so many of us in this game are used to singing in generic American or Cockney.          

 

Moments of joy effortlessly filled the MET. The entire team on stage, the crew, the band and the techies worked as one to bring the magic and it just works. I really can’t tell you why or how, it just did. I left the theatre with an almighty lump in my throat and the emotion of the show stayed with me well into the next day. A true story told with sincerity, humour and buckets of love. Perfection!

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.