Horsham's Calendar Girls "blown away by the support"

Company founder Stacey James, who is also playing Chris in the show, had to raise funds just to make the show possible, but she is thrilled at the way everyone has come forward to support it. Calendar Girls The Musical will run from February 21-25 in aid of St Catherine’s Hospice, with tickets on sale from the Capitol box office.

“I've been blown away really by the response,” Stacey says. “It was so hit and miss whether we would be able to do it. Tess (friend and chairman of HAODS) and I had the idea but people were saying we were a bit crazy to be thinking about it at a time when we were going into a recession and when theatres were not making any money. But people have been great. We took a big gamble and I'm just so blown away that it's coming off and that people have supported us and the fact that we are supporting St Catherine's Hospice. Ticket sales been going crazy. We've been selling blocks of 30 tickets and 20 tickets and 15 tickets and so on almost daily. I think the WI must be booking in groups. We're certainly aiming at a sell-out and I couldn't be prouder of everyone that has come forward and offered their support. And big hats off to HAODs. They are letting us use their rehearsal space for free and a lot of the company are actually from HAODS.”

With music and lyrics by Gary Barlow and Tim Firth, Calendar Girls The Musical was inspired by the 2003 film starring Helen Mirren and Julie Walters which was based on a true story. The death of a much-loved husband prompts a group of ordinary women in a small Yorkshire Women's Institute to do an extraordinary thing - an artistic nude calendar to raise money for charity.

“I am playing Chris who is the best mate of the woman who loses her husband and it is Chris who comes up with the idea of the calendar. Chris and I are quite similar as personalities. Everyone is saying that we are. It is kind of like life imitating art. I am the chief organiser of the show and she is the chief organiser of the calendar. She's got a big personality and so have I but actually she puts on this big persona. She's the ideas person but behind that she does feel that she has probably not quite amounted to all that she should have done in life. There's a gag running throughout. She talks about the fact that she is a former Miss Yorkshire but she wasn't really. She didn't win and it's just a question of her thinking she should have done more with her life and been more. So she is a bit unsatisfied at the start. But she goes on this really interesting journey in the piece, going from that lack of satisfaction to realising that everything she wants in life is there in front of her face. She is a bit ungrateful for her lot at the start but by the end she is relishing everything she's got around her.”