REVIEW | Calendar Girls the Musical, Sheffield Lyceum
★ ★ ★
Reviewer - Harry
*Disclaimer: Gifted tickets in return for an honest review
Gary Barlow and Tim Firth's Calendar Girls the Musical is back after its last tour finished in 2019. But this time it’s a brand new production, with some added songs and changes to the script. Based on the play by Tim Firth and the motion picture by Firth and Juliette Towhidi, and inspired by a true story, Calendar Girls is set in Yorkshire and follows a group of women who are part of the local Women’s Institute who decide to pose for a nude calendar to raise funds for charity, following the death of Annie's husband.
Directed by Jonathan O’Boyle, throughout the show themes of cancer, love and friendship are clearly visible. O’Boyle’s direction shows a clear friendship between the characters of Chris and Annie played by Amy Robbins and Tanya Franks, as well as their determination to make the calendar a success. But unfortunately I felt something was missing between the other women, who seemed a little distant. The loving relationship between Annie and her husband John, played by Colin R Campbell, was also clear but I wanted to see some more between the other women. However, emotional moments were very well done and sensitively handled.
I saw the last tour of the show, and knew that there were changes made for this production. I felt some of these changes weren’t needed. Some characters have been taken out and there is more focus on the WI. In some cases this adds more emotion to the story as there’s more of a chance to learn what the women are feeling. But it did take away some of the storylines involving wider family and friends, and didn’t really give the background as to why they joined the WI in the first place. I liked that the script had moments of laughter with some funny comedic lines, but also had emotion regarding love and loss and the coming together of the women, which was really lovely to see on stage. I would have liked the ensemble to be involved more within the show, maybe having them on stage for the fete scene to make it feel more realistic.
Calendar Girls’ songs are written by Gary Barlow, a few new ones have been added like ‘Mrs Rebellious’, and some have been shuffled around. There are some good songs in the show that are toe tapping like ‘Dare’, and there are some heart-warming lyrics in ‘Scarborough’, a song sung by Annie in which she lets it all out about her fears for a future without her husband. Some of the songs have some great meaning to them and are really lovely to hear.
The cast is small with only nine performers, who did a great job in bringing the story to the stage. They all had great vocals and the cast displayed some beautiful harmonies to lift the score. Amy Robbins gave a funny and sarcastic side to the character of Chris. She is the most daring one out of the women and very persuasive, which showed through her delivery of the dialogue. Tanya Franks plays Annie well with really good emotion, taking the character’s feelings and displaying them thoughtfully and clearly showing her nerves about doing the calendar. Everyone does a good job in creating their individual character but I think as the tour goes on, the cast will find ways to develop them even more.
Gary Mccan’s set is based on a community hall, with things flying in from above to create different locations like the motorway or a conference. This made the space feel much bigger than it looked, when scenes were in the community hall it felt like we were only seeing a bit of the space and there was more behind.
Overall this is an enjoyable show but it did leave me with some mixed feelings and emotions. Personally, I enjoyed the previous version, but while this is a rather scaled down version, there is some good additional material and everyone involved has put a lot of effort into this new production.
Calendar Girls runs at 2 hours and 30 minutes including one interval.
On a UK tour until December 2023.