The decorations are down, the Christmas tree has gone to the tip and most of winter lies ahead. What is there to look forward to?
Luckily, those at the Boxmoor Playhouse have staggered to their feet after an exhausting but highly successful ten performances of panto – Babes in the Wood – and after a brief festive R & R, are up and busy again preparing for their next production.
This Spring they will be presenting a very special play: Calendar Girls, which is based on an inspiring and moving real life story.
I expect many of you have seen the film, which concerns a Yorkshire Women’s institute branch which decided to make a calendar in which some of their members posed doing typical WI pursuits like jam making, knitting and gardening – but with no clothes on. The aim was to raise enough money to buy a new settee for the visitors’ room at the local hospital, where one member had spent many hours during her husband’s terminal illness from cancer. To everyone’s stunned surprise, the public response was so great that, in the end, enough was raised to finance a new wing at the hospital.
The play, based on the same story, is intensely moving but also very funny, so you come out feeling uplifted, rather than depressed. Oh, and by the way, nobody shows any x-certificate bits! It’s amazing what can be hidden by a watering can or a couple of iced buns!!
One of the things that make it particularly arresting is that it looks at the way in which their sudden fame changes the women involved for the better. Curiously, although there is a very sad death at the centre of the plot, this is a play with a happy ending.
Calendar Girls will be on-stage at the Playhouse from Wednesday, March 25 to Saturday, March 28, with a matinee on the Saturday, and is suitable for youngsters from 12 years old. Tickets are on sale now, so get booking!
Spring may not bring sunflowers (the Calendar Girls’ emblem) but it will bring snowdrops, daffodils and crocuses. So think positive thoughts as you pull on yet another woolly to fight the January draughts!
Theatre | HHTheatreCo | Hemel Hempstead
