Naked Truth About Bermuda’s “Calendar Girls”

Life imitated art when the cast, director and producer of the upcoming Bermuda Musical & Dramatic Society [BMDS] production “Calendar Girls” decided to emulate the show’s characters and pose for a 2014 local calendar wearing nothing but their best smiles.

Proceeds raised by the $15 calendars will be contributed to Bermuda Cancer and Health, Friends of Hospice and PALS with a small percentage of profits going to the BMDS charitable trust.

Strategically placed props will prevent too much skin from being exposed by the 10 actresses and two behind-the-scenes personnel who were inspired to disrobe for good Bermuda causes by the play’s plot.

“Calendar Girls” is based on a group of real middle-aged house wives in Yorkshire, England who famously stripped off to raise funds for cancer research in 1999.

Their story led to the 2003 movie “Calendar Girls” starring Helen Mirren and the 2009 play.

Releasing a number of subsequent calendars over the last decade, to date the Yorkshire women have raised more than £2 million for Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research, the UK’s leading blood cancer charity.

Organisers have promised both the City Hall play and next year’s calendar — photographed at various scenic locations around the island — will be tasteful and G-rated.

“Our photo shoots for the Bermuda calendar were practically the same as in the movie and play — wine, warnings about exposed ‘bits’, laughter, and friends helping each other out,” producer Adrienne Hintz told Bernews. “Only difference was that our photographer was a woman!”

In the play — which runs from April 11-13 and 17-20 at the City Hall’s Earl Cameron Theatre — when Annie’s husband John dies of leukaemia she and her best friend, Chris, decide to raise money for a new settee for the local hospital waiting room.

Trailer for 2003 “Calendar Girls” movie

They manage to persuade four fellow Women’s Institute members Cora, Celia, Ruth and Jessie to pose nude for an “alternative”‘ calendar, with a little help from hospital porter and amateur photographer, Lawrence.

News of the women’s charitable venture spreads like wild fire and hordes of press soon descend on the small village of Knapely in the Yorkshire Dales.

The calendar is a runaway success but Chris and Annie’s friendship is put to the test under the strain of new found fame.

Online bookings can be made from March 23-April 20 and tickets will also be available at the BMDS’ Daylesford Theatre Box Office from 5:30-6:30pm on April 3-5 and April 8-10 or at the Earl Cameron Theatre from 7-8pm on performance nights.

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