Tag Archives: Calendar Girls

Writers: Tim Firth & Gary Barlow Director: Matt Ryan Reviewer: John Roberts Tim Firth is no stranger to Calendar Girls having penned the original movie screenplay in 2003 and then the stage production in 2008. Now working in partnership with singer/songwriter and lead singer of Take That, Gary Barlow, the pair have re-worked the cheeky true story of a group of ...

Book, Music and Lyrics – Gary Barlow and Tim Firth Director: Matt Ryan Reviewer: Kate Goerner The musical version of the famous true story of the Yorkshire Women’s Institute members who stripped off returns to The Lowry, where it enjoyed a pre-West End run two years ago. Back then it was called simply The Girls- but following its West End ...

Writers:  Gary Barlow and Tim Firth Director: Matt Ryan Reviewer: Dominic Corr Baring heart, soul and (yes) flesh for us all, Calendar Girls the Musical brings the warming hue of sunflowers to the chilled streets of Edinburgh. A year in Yorkshire, filled with fêtes, baking and meetings of the Women’s Institute. The base story remains unchanged for the new touring ...

Writers:  Gary Barlow and Tim Firth Design: Robert Jones Musical Staging: Lucy Hind Director: Matt Ryan Orchestrations: Steve Parry Reviewer: Rob Atkinson To judge a musical theatre rendition of a story against its original movie production, or even against the in-between incarnation of a stage play, is to risk comparing chalk with cheese; they’re simply different animals with different types ...

Reviewer: Fraser MacDonald Fresh from its run at The Phoenix Theatre in London’s West End, Gary Barlow and Tim Firth’s newly christened Calendar Girls The Musical (formerly The Girls) delivers its cast recording ahead of a UK-wide tour. The sickly-sweet tale of Yorkshire women baring all to raise funds for Annie’s leukaemia-stricken husband is familiar to most from the 2003 ...

A Village Hall isn’t the usual place to launch a major new musical, but today Gary Barlow and Tim Firth visited Burnsall Village Hall to announce that their new musical The Girls will premiere at The Grand Theatre Leeds in November and then play The Lowry Theatre in January 2016 Burnsall in Yorkshire is where the original story began and ...

Writer: Tim Firth Director: Jack Ryder Reviewer: Glen Pearce [rating:4.5]   In just nine years Calendar Girls has become something of an institution. The real life events of a Yorkshire WI group inspiring a film and then a stage play that became the fastest selling tour in UK theatre history. All good things must come to an end, though, and ...

Writer: Tim Firth Director: Jack Ryder Reviewer: Selwyn Knight [rating:4] Few people can be unaware of the story of the Calendar Girls: the death in 1998 of John Baker from non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, the husband of one of the ladies of the Rylstone &District Women's Institute, inspires her and her friends to produce the Alternative WI Calendar of 2000. They became ...