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Graham Clark
Music Features Writer
@Maxximum23Clark
10:13 PM 13th October 2019
arts

Interview With Ruth Madoc As Calendar Girls Returns To The North

 
Actress Ruth Madoc will probably be best remembered for her role in the comedy TV series Hi-Di-Hi. Now the acclaimed actress is starring in Calendar Girls which tells the story of how a group of Women's Institute ladies from the Yorkshire Dales posed partly naked for a Calendar, to raise money for a memorial for the husband of one of the ladies who died from cancer.

Calendar Girls is set in the Yorkshire Dales have you ever been there?
Of course, I've visited many times. My parents worked in medicine and they used to travel around the country, we lived in Hull at one point. The show had actually been on at the New Theatre in Hull and a lot of my friends who live in Hull came to see the show. We used to travel over the Snake Pass a lot and also have trips up to the Yorkshire Dales, it is a beautiful part of the country.

The show is coming to Blackpool have you been there before?
Many times, in fact I once switched on the Blackpool illuminations! They are still on when we get to Blackpool so I will be having a trip through them. We do Blackpool for the best part of a week then we go to Ipswich, Chester, Bath and end up in Chichester which takes us up to Christmas.

Why do you think the show is so successful?
Because it is a wonderful story with something that everyone in the audience can relate to: there will always be someone sitting there who knows someone who has either passed away with cancer or someone who has conquered cancer. You have to remember too that it is a play with music and not a musical as such. The adaptation that Tim Firth and Gary Barlow have done is fantastic, I have met them both a few times as they keep coming to see the show.

How are you doing now after breaking your hip?
I fractured my femur in February whilst doing Calendar Girls, it was done so quickly, 2 seconds in fact! The steel pins will be in me for a while yet. The doctors say it will take 18 months for everything to completely heal, I still have to walk with a stick at times but I'm doing fine and still appearing in the show.

Do you have good memories of Hi-Di-Hi?
I do, it ran for 9 years and is still being shown on UK Gold and I have seen one or two episodes, but at the time when we were actually doing it I never watched it as I wanted to approach each episode fresh and not be influenced by watching what I had already done.

Did you ever visit a holiday camp?
We used to go to Butlins at Filey as it was not that far up the coast from Hull. Sadly though a lot of them have been put to other uses and pulled down and turned down into housing developments, that's what happened to Dovercourt where Hi Di Hi was filmed. I'm glad that Skegness, Pwllheli and Minehead Butlins are still going. They have the music weekends there too, it keeps the nostalgia going.

Have you ever met any of the original Calendar Girls?
Yes, they come to see the show especially if we are local to them, some of them are coming to Blackpool to see the show there.

Do you actually bare all on stage?
Not really, if you look at the original calendar you will see that each one of them has something strategically placed in front of them. I've got knitting in front of me and of course it would not be a very pretty sight to see women of a certain age, shall we say, bare all!

Calendar Girls is at Blackpool Opera House from Tuesday 15 October until Saturday 19 October

https://www.wintergardensblackpool.co.uk/whats-on/calendar-girls-the-musical