This week, the Bartholomew Players are performing Calendar Girls by Tim Firth, based on the story of a real group of WI women who made a nude calendar to raise funds for Leukaemia research. I have been lucky enough to sit in for rehearsals this weekend.
From watching the cast rehearse, it is clear that there is not only a huge amount of individual courage, but also a wonderful cast dynamic which is present both offstage and on. The actors are lively and energetic, and clearly very well cast, with some seeming even to compete with the stars of the film themselves! The Bartholomew Players have evidently spent hours upon hours rehearsing and finessing, and this comes through very clearly in the piece: there is a sense of fluidity throughout, and timing is invariably perfect. The line delivery is also very professional, making the most of the sarcastic humour of much of the script, and each performer has found their character’s own personality, attitude and even dress sense.
And the un-dress sense? This production has skilfully found ways to perform the challenging script without compromising the performers’ decency, with extreme flair and originality. The performers are not only very brave, but also committed and enthusiastic, and have executed this difficult part of the play extremely well.
As well as considerable humour, there are times when the Calendar Girls story aches pathos. It can be challenging to act convincingly when so many serious topics are presented, but in spite of the difficult issues addressed (cancer, bereavement, age prejudice, infidelity and dishonesty, body image, fame and its effects, raising a child as a single mum; the list goes on…) these actors perform with authenticity and honesty – certainly enough to bring tears to the eye several times over. I found that this effective balance of the funny and the sad is expertly achieved by the talented cast and offers a lot to the authenticity of the play as a whole.
The production of this play is excellent: the scenery is copious, making scene changes a little difficult but adding inestimably to the piece’s believability; and the costumes have been expertly chosen, each costume seeming to fit well with the personality of the character they belong to. In order to give the sense of the seasons changing and time passing, the costume changes are frequent; however the cast manage to handle these efficiently, and in dress rehearsal the piece ran smoothly from start to finish without too much time between scenes despite these quick-changes (which would always be a problem for a play which started life as a film script). The play clearly has good rhythm to it and the Players have made it work in spite of all the scene changes.
I was extremely impressed by the entire piece, and I would highly recommend it to anybody to watch. It is a pleasure to see so much camaraderie within a cast (with the WI-type-banter continuing offstage and a clear sense of the cast as a working whole) and there has clearly been a huge input, to get such a fantastic show!
THE CALENDAR:
The Bartholomew Players have also decided (very boldly – such brave actors!) to make their own calendar, which they are currently selling, the proceeds for which will be donated to the hospice care charity Helen and Douglas House. The calendar is creative, bold and smile-inducing, and it is very much in the spirit of its famous predecessor. Copies will be available at the performance.