Comedy returns for another sell-out week

CALENDAR GIRLS, Lowry Lyric

TIM Firth’s adaptation of his movie screenplay for the stage was at the Lowry only five months ago. So popular was it that the week had to be repeated by popular demand before it heads for London.

Suffice to say, this second week is pretty well sold out too.

And while I am no great fan of Firth’s writing for the stage — he has a tendency for the second half of his works to get a bit downbeat and tedious, as here — I must admit that as a package, this is a corker of a subject.

It has the lot: tragedy, sentiment, female friendship, a fight against authority, comedy, and the rise to fame and fortune of the underdog. I suppose the only way to top it for attractiveness would be to have a dog in there somewhere. A labrador, perhaps. But we almost do: Lynda Bellingham, who has moved from minor supporting roles on TV 30-odd years ago (remember “General Hospital”?) to iconic status on daytime television and ads, is as big, boisterous and, okay, bouncy, as any four-legged friend.

As Chris — best friend of Annie (Patricia Hodge), whose husband John’s death is the catalyst for the famous nude WI calendar — Bellingham is one of those cheery actresses you can’t help your eyes drawing towards; a high-energy personality who manages to outshine those of her famous female co-stars.

Even the likes of veteran Sian Phillips, chirpy Gaynor Faye, big-hearted Elaine C Smith, mouse-that-roared Julia Hills and favourite northerner Brigit Forsyth, cannot overcome her forceful presence.

Bellingham drives the show as the woman behind the calendar, the one keen for fame and ultimately the one who pushes the reluctant strippers to a £580,000 fund for charity (since bumped to £2 million).

The first half is a fast-moving, good-natured battle of wills with reluctant friends, an even more reluctant WI hierarchy and the photo-shoot itself, the last of these coyly and hilariously organised. Firth’s dialogue crackles with one-liners and funny exchanges.

Only in the second half, when Annie and Chris temporarily fall out (for dramatic purposes, since this apparently didn’t happen), does the warm mood of the show fall into sentimentality and become a bit much.

But there are plenty of laughs: it’s a powerful comedy with its heart very much in the right place.