Original Calendar Girls attend opening night performance

The original Calendar Girls, and inspiration for the musical, play and film, joined the star-studded cast and crew on stage after last night's opening performance at Leeds Grand Theatre.

Celebrating 25 years since the inception and creation of the original calendar and 20 years since the record-breaking movie’s release, Calendar Girls the Musical returns to The Grand for the third time after it premiered there in 2015, followed by a revival in 2018.

The third iteration has been stripped back to lay somewhere between the original play and the original musical. Tim Firth, co-writer with Gary Barlow, also in attendance said: “Pre-pandemic I had been preparing the musical for a foreign production which was of course then postponed. When the skies cleared and a new production in the UK was proposed I looked back and thought, ‘This is the version we ought to stage’. The story and songs, a little like the real world, had been thrown in the air and come back slightly different… it seemed right for a time when sunlight, optimism and humour seemed more necessary than ever. Like the calendar itself, it seemed that something dark had created something unexpectedly bright.”

Calendar Girls the Musical follows a group of extraordinary women in a small Yorkshire Women’s Institute, prompted to create a nude calendar following the death of a much-loved husband, to raise funds for charity.

This tour is proud to be supporting Blood Cancer UK, the charity dedicated to funding research into all blood cancers including leukemia, lymphoma, and myeloma, as well as offering information and support to blood cancer parents.

Calendar Girls the Musical is at Leeds Grand Theatre from Tue 7 to Sat 11 November 2023. Book tickets online at leedsheritagetheatres.com or call the Box Office on 0113 243 0808