Entertainment

Being a Calendar Girl brings tears and laughter for Lesley Joseph

Lesley Joseph is mostly known for playing brash Dorien Green in Birds of Feather but Gail Bell senses a softer side ahead of her Belfast debut in Calendar Girls The Musical

The cast of the musical version of Calendar Girls, which is coming to Belfast's Grand Opera House next week
The cast of the musical version of Calendar Girls, which is coming to Belfast's Grand Opera House next week The cast of the musical version of Calendar Girls, which is coming to Belfast's Grand Opera House next week

A TIRED-sounding 'Hi' comes down the line and I wonder if this could really be the spirited Lesley Joseph, known to thousands of fans for her Dorienesque exuberance in popular BBC sitcom Birds of a Feather.

But the actress, now aged 73, is feeling slightly subdued after opening a heartrending yet inspiring letter from an unknown theatre-goer who had seen her in Calendar Girls (the musical) and felt compelled to put pen to paper to let her know what she thought.

"This letter is really what it's all about," Joseph says with sincerity. "I have literally just opened it – it's from a woman who came to see us perform, who has recently been widowed and finding life tough.

"She wrote that I had given her the courage to face an uncertain future, that I had made her laugh and then go home feeling uplifted. You read something like that and you think, 'Wow', that is the real impact on real lives that this musical show is having."

The LAMDA (London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art) graduate, who plays 'Jessie' in Gary Barlow and Tim Firth's award-winning musical comedy, is the latest to join the cast and is revelling in the laughter, tears, songs and, yes, a little light nudity, that are integral to the show which is heading to Belfast next week.

Standing ovations have been pretty standard at performances of the reimagined Calendar Girls which opened to five-star reviews in London in 2017 and is currently on an extensive UK tour.

For those unfamiliar with the tale, it took root in Yorkshire 20 years ago when a group of Yorkshire WI ladies rejected the usual jam-making activities and stripped off for a risque calendar – to raise money for a new sofa at their local hospital.

Their charitable efforts began after the husband of one of their members, Angela Baker, was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a type of blood cancer, but sadly passed away a few months after treatment.

But, so successful was the unconventional WI venture that funds raised vastly exceeded the cost of a sofa – to date, around £5 million has been raised for the Bloodwise charity and the women's journey has spawned a film, play and now musical theatre show which, according to Joseph, is the best version yet.

"It's a beautiful show, I saw it when opened in London and the music adds so much to the story," she says. "I did the play twice, which is lovely, but I think the music takes it that much further on. It really adds something very special as music brings a poignancy and speaks in a way words can't."

The bitter-sweetness, where humour is juxtaposed with tragedy and sadness, is extended further with glimpses into the individual back stories of the women, each of whom bring their own set of anxieties to the table.

"There's the character who's afraid of losing her husband and my character who's afraid of growing old – it's all there, it's all about life," Joseph says. "It's about women coping with life and making something out of a terrible situation.

"I think it's wonderful because it's not full of glamour, it's just a cast of ordinary women – although obviously specifically cast – whose situation seems to strike a chord with different members of the audience for different reasons.

"Also, people are affected emotionally by the main story because many are going through the same thing – women, or men, who have lost someone to cancer, or who are maybe going through it themselves."

She has met the real Jessie three times and each time it leaves a mark.

"The real-life Jessie has lovely short, white hair and she's adorable; they're all adorable, the actual ladies," Joseph enthuses. "They always wear black and they always have sunflowers on, which has become their sort of uniform now. They have raised millions of pounds for the cancer charity which is extraordinary."

So, the actual stripping off bit, I wonder what that is like, particularly for a woman of a certain age....

"Oh, that has been absolutely fine," she says, laughing. "It's done so subtly – the audience see a certain amount, but it's all over very quickly. In fact, it's been interesting, because in the scene before the stripping off one, I have quite an emotional song about growing old with the lady who plays 'Celia' –Lisa Maxwell – so once I get through the song, well, stripping off is easy."

:: Calendar Girls The Musical opens at the Grand Opera House, Belfast, on Tuesday May 14 and runs for two weeks (goh.co.uk).