Nude impressions at the Theatre Royal (From Gazette Series)

Nude impressions at the Theatre Royal

3:13pm Tuesday 7th February 2012 in What's On By Marion Sauvebois

Theatre Royal Bath

Calendar Girls

Monday, February 6 to Saturday 11

HOW FAR would you be ready to go for charity? Give up chocolate for a month? Quit smoking? How about taking your clothes off?

"That’s a big no no", I hear you shout. "What about common decency?"

Well, for a group of bold and resourceful WI ladies, who not only stripped for a good cause but also had the deed immortalised on film and in print, it was their golden fundraising ticket.

Calendar Girls retraces the real-life story of six slightly bonkers women on their hilarious—and simultaneously heartbreaking—quest to buy a settee for the local hospital.

When Annie’s husband John is diagnosed with lymphoma, all the members of the local WI decide to do something for the hospital treating him.

A comfortable new settee for the waiting room seems like the perfect choice but they soon realise that their usual fundraising avenues—selling a boring calendar featuring Yorkshire churchyards, for example—will not get them anywhere near their £580 target.

The enfant terrible of the group, Chris, who openly admits she only joined the WI to please her mother-in-law, has no idea how to knit and has been known to enter Marks and Spencer’s sponge in baking competitions, suggests they pose for their very own nude calendar featuring "spectacular views of the WI."

Against all odds, the rest of the group, after relatively little convincing, agree to the idea to the delight/shock of the audience.

To say that the shoot scenes are hysterical would be an understatement. I cannot remember the last time I laughed this hard. After downing a bottle of vodka between them, the suitably inebriated ladies strike the pose hiding their most intimate body parts behind tea cups, cakes and floral arrangements. The fact that the photographer is a useless, easily intimidated twenty-something boy who has clearly never seen a woman naked before does not really help matters.

But it’s the dialogue that really makes these scenes unforgettable.

"If I don't get them out now when will I?" and "we will need considerably bigger buns" are only a couple of examples of the witty banter which sets Calendar Girls apart from most comedies and turn it into a uniquely clever show.

Laughter aside, it take a talented group of actors and a great writer to successfully juggle between mournful and comedic scenes without making the gravity of loss or cancer appear trivial or get lost in the jokes. But one actress, Lynda Bellingham, really stood out and the play would not have been the same without her charismatic portrayal of outspoken-to-a-fault Chris.

Calendar is a terrific show. If it does not make you long to shoot your very own nude calendar—all in the name of charity, of course—it will most likely make you itch to bin the DVD adaptation.