Theatre: Nude calendar escapade continues to offer fertile ground for comedy

The Playbox Calendar Girls are Janine Swainson, Lucinda Heslin-Wightman, Courteney Wolstenholme, Cat Dwyer, Kerrie-Lucas-Candy, and Nicole Domett. Photo / Geoff Lewis

“There’s a difference between naarked and neoood,” explains Chris to her sister conspirators who are about to get their kit off for a charity fundraiser.

Calendar Girls is a British comedy that has its origins in the true-life story of a group of middle-aged Yorkshire women and Women’s Institute members who posed for a range of creative scenes while largely unclothed.

The whole escapade begins when Annie’s (Nicole Domett) husband John (Ron Dalton) dies of cancer and her friend Chris (Lucinda Heslin-Wightman) hatches a plan to create a nude calendar motivated by the desire to say a little “thank you” by buying a new sofa for the local hospital’s cancer department.

However, convincing her institute friends into this caper exposes a menagerie of inhibitions sufficient to keep any psychoanalyst busy for years and fertile ground for comedy.

The plan exceeds expectations by a country mile and soon the calendar is attracting interest nationally and raising enough money to fund an entirely new medical wing.

Playbox director Jane Barnett has worked well in casting with participants from Hamilton and the further Waikato region.

This is very much a women’s show with strong elements of pathos around the confidence of older women in their physical shape. Stand-outs include Heslin-Wightman who provides an element of glamour, a cameo appearance by well-known local director Lorna Aston as Lady Cravenshire and a brief but hilariously overacted scene with makeup artist Lily Gladstone-Gallagher.

Written by Tim Firth and Juliette Towhidi, Calendar Girls was first produced as a movie in 2003 with a $10 million budget and went on to take more than $100m at the box office. It was then staged as a musical in 2015.

The Hamilton Playbox production, directed by Jane Barnett, can be experienced at the Riverlea Theatre, Riverlea Rd Hamilton, until April 1, tickets are available online at www.iTicket.co.nz or at the theatre.