A GROUP of Kingswood ladies are preparing to bare all as part of a world record attempt to bring Calendar Girls to stages across the country.
Chilly rehearsals are now under way, as the am-dram ladies of the Kingsood Players are getting ready to perform in their birthday suits as part of the nationwide record attempt.
In 2008, the professional production of Calendar Girls became 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 show producers David Pugh and Dafydd Rogers want to break into the Guinness Book of World Records and establish the record for the most productions of one play in one year.
To achieve this, they are releasing the amateur rights for Calendar Girls for just 12 months, from Saturday, September 1.
The Kingswood Players will be one of the first groups in the country to take up the challenge, putting on their own production in October.
Retired midwife Kate Bond, 61, of Whitehall, will be taking on the role of one of the lead characters – prim church organist Cora.
But Kate only has herself to blame – it was her, together with her husband Richard, who is directing the production, who came up with the idea of staging the show.
"When Richard and I heard about the amateur rights being released for the show we thought – we have to do it," says Kate, who has been a member of the am-dram group for 30 years.
"All the ladies were a little reticent when we first put the idea to them, but as my character says in the show – if we don't do it now, when will we do it?"
The play is based on the true story of a group of Yorkshire women who produced a nude calendar to raise money for Leukaemia Research in 1999.
"Everyone has the idea that we must be walking around naked for the whole show, but of course the ladies only bare all for one scene, and it's all very tastefully done – we're hoping the audience shouldn't get to see anything we wouldn't want them to see."
But Mrs Bond admits that it will still take a lot of courage to stand naked on stage.
"We are only starting to rehearse that scene this week – we didn't want to plunge ourselves into it straight away, because of course, some ladies are more nervous about getting their kit off than others."
Sue Lewis, of Henbury, who will be playing Annie – the role played by Julie Walters in the film – says the story has gone full circle by the ladies posing for their own naked calendar, in order to raise money for the charity Cancer and Leukaemia Research.
"We were keen that the story should come full circle, and we should use the opportunity of putting the show on as a way of raising money for the very cause that the original calendar girls posed for in the first place," she said.
"So our calendar will be on sale at each performance, priced £5."
Mrs Bond said: "We had a good laugh posing for the pictures, and it got us all a little more used to taking our clothes off in public."
● Calendar Girls, performed by the Kingswood Players, takes place at the Kingswood Community Centre, October 12, 13, 19 and 20, 7.30pm (with a 2.30pm matinee on October 13). Tickets, priced £10, concession £8, are available from 0777 2056562. For more information, or to order a calendar, visit www.kingswoodplayers.org.
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