Calendar Girls

Author: Tim Firth from the Miramax film by Juliette Towhidi & Tim Firth
Director: Richard Bond

BRISTOL CALENDAR GIRLS -The Calendar Girls of Kingswood, Bristol / South Gloucestershire!

Final amount raised for the charity = £2012.  Thanks to everyone who helped, especially our sponsors.

You may have seen a picture or read about this in 'The Independent on Sunday', 'The Post', 'The Kingswood Observer',,'The Daily Mail', or Hugo Fox News or heard about us on BBC Radio Bristol & Radio 2 or on BBC's TheOne Show we have become very popular!

Since 2008 the professional production of “Calendar Girls” by Tim Firth has become the most successful play to ever tour the UK, following a year’s run in the West End, grossing more at the box office than the original film.

Now the show’s producers David Pugh and Dafydd Rogers want to break into the Guinness Book of Records and establish the record for the most productions of one play in one year and so for the very first time, the amateur rights for “Calendar Girls” will be released for just 12 months, from 1 September 2012 – 31 August 2013.  Performance fees to Samuel French, the publishers, will include a donation to Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research, which is what started it all in the first place.

The Kingswood Players are excited and proud to be the first amateur drama group in the Bristol / South Gloucestershire area to announce that we will be presenting Calendar Girls, directed by Richard Bond, in October – 2012.

The group as a whole are fully committed to this venture and we are already in the planning stage.  You will see from the following photograph that our ladies are ready to do whatever is necessary to make our production a success and raise funds for this vital research charity in the process.

Thank you to those who have already agreed to provide sponsorship towards this production - which in turn will help Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research.

Synopsis of the play

Annie's husband John has leukaemia so, she and best friend Chris resolve to raise money for a new settee in the local hospital waiting room. They manage to persuade four fellow WI members to pose nude with them for an "alternative" calendar, with a little help from hospital porter and amateur photographer Lawrence. The news of the women's charitable venture spreads like wildfire, and hordes of press soon descend on the small village of Knapeley in the Yorkshire Dales. The calendar is a success, but Chris and Annie's friendship is put to the test under the strain of their new-found fame.

Based on the true story of eleven WI members who posed nude for a calendar to raise money for the Leukaemia Research Fund, Calendar Girls opened at the Chichester Festival Theatre and has since become the fastest selling play in British theatre history.

The play continues to support Leukaemia Research as in the original story. If you can help in anyway to support this important charity, please email: calendargirls@kingswoodplayers.org