15 October 2012

Please note: this news article is in our archive. Articles were correct at time of publication, but should not be relied on for accuracy after the passage of time.

THE ladies of the ACE Theatre Company bared their souls – and their assets –  in a production of Calendar Girls at Chequer Mead last week.

The fictionalised film version of how members of a Yorkshire Women’s Institute raised millions of pounds for Leukaemia Research by posing nude for a calendar won numerous accolades including the British Comedy Award.

And the recent release of the amateur performing rights means that this immensely likeable romp is now enjoying a second life on stage.

I am prepared to bet that none of Ace’s Calender Girls has been naked in public before, but they overcome any qualms they may have felt about baring all for their art in this funny, feel-good production.

Humour and pathos were beautifully combined as the motives and back stories of the characters were laid as bare as their flesh.

Dorothy Maynard as the newly-widowed Annie, was touching in scenes with her dying husband John, played with cheerful resolve by Steve Gray, and later when the weight of other people’s grief threatened to overwhelm her.

Chris White played “Chris”, the driving force behind the calendar project, as a woman torn between making a success of something for the first time in her life and neglecting her family, and her eventual reconciliation with Annie, and the realisation that the Calendar was bigger than both of them, was movingly portrayed.

There were two reasons why Alicia Lane landed the role of Celia both of which both required “considerably bigger buns…” and her sassy debut with ACE was greatly appreciated by the male half of the audience in particular.

Veteran actress Kath Lunn played retired teacher Jessie, a woman tired of being dismissed on the grounds of her age. She put in a spirited performance and will be glad to know that no glimpse of her “front bottom” was visible behind her knitting.

While Carrie Hazeel, as the betrayed and tormented Ruth, was touching in her transition from shy introvert to a woman who finally knew her own worth, and was terrific in her show-down with the vacuous ‘other women’, beautifully played by Vicki Searle.

It fell to Kate Gledhill, playing the church organist Cora, to reveal most, in an endearing and heartwarming performance which was, despite being entirely naked, in the “best possible taste” thanks to some deft work by her fellow players who included Robert Barnes as the photographer drafted in to make the calendar a reality, Lynne Fallowell as the domineering WI chairman Marie and Peta-Jane Onslow as the formidable Lady Cravenshire.

Ladies you were brave, you were bold.

But above all, you were beautiful.