REVIEW: Calendar Girls The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday ****

Laurie Brett’s Annie, left, Maureen Nolan’s Ruth, Honeysuckle Weeks’s Cora, Helen Pearson’s Celia, Lyn Paul’s Jessie and Samantha Seager’s Chris in a village hall scene in Calendar Girls The Musical. Picture: Jack Merriman

CALENDAR Girls The Musical had its belated York premiere in the reet Yorkshire hands of York Stage in April 2022 at the Grand Opera House.

Now its sunflower power radiates from a bunch of music, stage and television stars in Jonathan O’Boyle’s touring production, playing York with four changes of cast since its November run at Leeds Grand Theatre.

It was in this Leeds theatre that Take That head boy Gary Barlow and playwright and screenwriter Tim Firth – fellow sons of the Wirral and friends since teenage days – premiered their very Yorkshire yet universally appealing musical in 2015 under the title of The Girls.

Now toured by Bill Kenwright Ltd, O’Boyle’s 2023-204 production is a stripped-back version of the nude calendar story of a fund-raising group of North Yorkshire Women’s Institution villagers. Stripped back in that the three teenage children’s roles have been removed, although reference is still made to one.

The reasoning: Firth wanted to put the maximum focus on the women in the story, and given the presence of familiar faces (and voices) in the cast, from EastEnders’ Laurie Brett and Foyle’s War’s Honeysuckle Weeks to the New Seekers’ Lyn Paul and Maureen Nolan, that makes sense.

Composer Gary Barlow

You surely know the story, as told previously in the 2003 film, scripted by Firth, and the stage play, but Barlow and Firth’s musical is even better, wittier too, the format suiting what is already an opera-scaled, tragicomic human drama of ordinary women at the centre of an extraordinary story.

When much-loved National Park wall builder and sunflower grower John ‘Clarkey’ Clarke (John R Campbell) dies from leukaemia, his wife Annie (Brett) teams up with Knapely Women’s Institute rebel Chris (Samantha Seager, from Coronation Street), her friend for 40 years, to raise funds to buy a new sofa for the relatives’ room at Skipton General.

They vow to defy the new but old-stick WI chair Marie (Liz Carney) by posing with fellow members for the nudie calendar in John’s memory, honouring his unbreakable call to be inventive and not to follow the well-beaten track.

The curtain, adorned with a giant sunflower, rises to a scene-setting ensemble anthem, Yorkshire, that resonates all the more in the county’s capital before Brett’s Annie sings the first part of a narrative song in three sections interwoven with further songs and scenes.

Each section tells John’s back story, accompanied by vignettes at home, in the village hall, at the hospital, that capture his humour, his spirit, his character, while charting the devastating path of his blood cancer and the creeping dread of what is to be lost.

Namely, the minutiae of marriage. Why we connect. Love, familiarity, companionship, routine, shared memories, the stuff of the show’s best song, Scarborough, and its Act Two sequel, Kilimanjaro, sung so powerfully by Brett.

Maureen Nolan’s Ruth, nursing her “Russian friend”, the vodka bottle, in Calendar Girls The Musical. Picture: Jack Merriman

To the wit and wisdom of Alan Ayckbourn, Victoria Wood and Willy Russell’s dramas, add Firth, a master of observant humour, northern nous and pathos, writ large here in both his dialogue and lyrics, accompanied by multi-faceted tunes from ballad king and pop puck Barlow, whose keyboard-led compositions so suit the vogue for story-telling, highly emotional musical theatre.

One by one, we meet Brett’s grieving but resilient Annie; Seager’s agitated, brazen Chris; Weeks’s piano-playing Cora, the vicar’s no-nonsense daughter; Helen Pearson’s reupholstered, flashy Celia, the golf-loving former air hostess; Paul’s Jessie, wise-owl ex-teacher and knitting enthusiast, and Nolan’s reserved Ruth.

Each is a given a character-revealing, story-telling solo number, each met with abundant applause from Wednesday’s enthusiastic matinee crowd. Weeks’s Hallelujah Silent Night is a Christmas blast; Pearson’s confessional So I’ve Had A Little Work Done is both cheeky and defiant; Paul’s What Age Expects is all-knowing, and Carney’s Spring Fete is assertively strict, her Mrs Rebellious, scornful. Bloody-minded ‘Yorkshireness’ is everywhere.

In her interview, Maureen Nolan talked of her role as being about “quality over quantity”, and no song is better delivered than My Russian Friend And I, as Nolan’s Ruth reveals how vodka is more present in her life than her philandering husband. 

Firth’s writing is matched by the chemistry of Brett’s Annie and Campbell’s Clarkey, whose parting has the audience reaching for tissues. Equally as affecting is the bond of Annie and Chris, as the strains and stresses of friendship play out under the utmost duress.

Sunflowers all round: The Calendar Girls, in trademark black, in the celebratory finale. Picture: Jack Merriman

Calendar Girls is about more than the Girls, even if the men’s roles have been reduced to Campbell’s Clarkey and professional debutant Andrew Tuton’s Rod, the photographer with the idea for the now notorious calendar. 

Firth’s best decision is to mirror The Full Monty in making that photoshoot the climax, each month’s calendar girl strip-off greeted with a yet bigger cheer or whoop.

O’Boyle’s direction is equally strong on individual characterisation and teamwork, complemented by Jos Houben’s movement direction on an open-plan set radically different from the 2015 premiere, where Robert Jones built Yorkshire as a green and pleasant Jerusalem with hills made from furniture that turned into doors and prop cupboards too.

Gary McCann favours a more conventional design ideal for touring: a village hall with a kitchen to one side and a Yorkshire Dales skyline beyond the doors and windows, the structure taller to the front, the floor an open expanse to accommodate a piano, a sofa, hospital signage, a meeting of the WI national federation, or a home, whatever each scene demands.

Hurry, hurry, make room on your kitchen calendar to see this Yorkshire story of tears and cheers, grief and loss, spirit and renewal, humour and humanity, cakes and buns, songs and sunflowers.

Performances: 7.30pm, tonight and tomorrow; 2.30pm and 7.30pm, Saturday. Box office: atgtickets.com/york

Why the ’empowering, cathartic’ Calendar Girls means so much to Maureen Nolan

“It’s such a touching story, especially for my family, where cancer has played such a part – and still is,” says Calendar Girls The Musical actress Maureen Nolan. Picture: Jack Merriman

CALENDAR Girls The Musical has a bucketload of poignancy for Maureen Nolan.

As ever, the collection buckets will be out, raising funds for Blood Cancer UK from tomorrow to Saturday when the Gary Barlow and Tim Firth musical plays the Grand Opera House, York.

“It’s such a touching story, especially for my family, where cancer has played such a part – and still is,” says Maureen, who will be playing Ruth in Jonathan O’Boyle’s touring production.

Sister Bernie, who appeared in the play version of Calendar Girls, died of breast cancer in 2013; eldest sister Anne, diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time in April 2020, is in remission; younger sister Linda last year announced her cancer had spread to her brain.

“That didn’t make it more difficult for me to do the show,” says Maureen, who made her name as part of The Nolans, the Anglo-Irish family of singing sisters from Blackpool. “Calendar Girls is almost empowering, cathartic. People come up constantly afterwards with these very sad stories but they’re still smiling on the way out.”

Quick refresher course: Calendar Girls, the film, the play, now the musical, was inspired by the true story of Rylstone Women’s Institute members raising £5 million (and counting) for blood cancer research.

Maureen Nolan, as Mrs Johnstone, with Sean Jones as her son Mickey Johnstone, in Blood Brothers at the Grand Opera House, York in 2013

The story goes: Following the death to leukaemia of Annie’s much-loved husband, the ordinary women of a small Yorkshire Women’s Institute are prompted to do something extraordinary, whereupon they set about creating a nude calendar to raise money for charity.

However, upturning preconceptions is a dangerous business and none of the women are prepared for the emotional and personal ramifications they will face as the fabulous and funny calendar brings each woman unexpectedly into flower.

Explaining those audience smiles, Maureen says: “I think it’s because Annie, who loses her husband, does get over it, raising £5 million for this amazing charity. Life has to go on. People are weeping in the audience, but the reality is that cancer is a a massive part of life but is getting more curable. Like my sister Linda, who has had cancer since 2005 in different forms but is still enjoying life.”

Maureen, whose Grand Opera House appearances included Mrs Johnston in Willy Russell’s musical Blood Brothers in October 13, is joined on the 2024 leg of the Calendar Girls tour by stars of music, stage and television: Laurie Brett as Annie; Liz Carney as Marie; Helen Pearson as Celia; Samantha Seager as Chris; Lyn Paul as Jessie and Honeysuckle Weeks as Cora.

“I first got involved at the end of the summer last year, when they said, ‘would you have a chat with Tim [Firth] and the director, Jonathan [O’Boyle]?’. He’s a young man, 40 this year, who had to work with all these women, seven women of differing ages, menopausal and older, and I can’t imagine anyone handling it better. He never lost his cool,” she says of her rehearsal experience.

The cast had to work on a condensed version of Barlow and Firth’s original version of the musical, premiered at Leeds Grand Theatre in November-December 2015 under the title of The Girls (returning there on the 2023-2024 tour’s first leg last November) .

Maureen Nolan as Ruth, holding her “Russian friend”, in Calendar Girls The Musical. Picture: Jack Merriman

“They don’t have the children in the show now, with Tim wanting to concentrate on the women, not the back story, with new songs as well, so we were a little under-rehearsed when we opened after only three weeks,” says Maureen, who had seen only the film and an amateur production of the before taking on the role of Ruth.

“I had nothing to go on, having not seen the original musical, so I play Ruth like Mavis [Thelma Barlow’s Mavis Riley] from Coronation Street! Others think she’s a bit OCD-ish, but it turns out she’s had a mentally abusive relationship [with a philandering husband] and she’s hiding a drink problem.

“At first I didn’t think Ruth was in it much, but it’s about quality not quantity, and at my age [she will turn 70 on June 14] I get the chance to stand in the dressing room making tea – and Ruth has some great comedy lines.”

Maureen enthuses: “Along with Blood Brothers, it’s the best show I’ve ever done. We were laughing and crying throughout rehearsals: the writing is genius by Tim and Gary; like Willy Russell’s shows, you can’t go wrong.

“Between Tim’s words and Gary’s music, the songs are beautiful and uplifting, and the music really adds to the show. I’ve been in things that I wish I hadn’t been in, but I am so proud of this musical.”

Sunflower power: The principal cast for Calendar Girls The Musical, including Maureen Nolan, right. Picture: Jack Merriman

Not least because of Ruth’s song, the tragicomic My Russian Friend And I, that ‘friend’ being the vodka bottle. “It’s a funny scene but then tragic: what people like her go through and yet keep hidden.”

Ruth ostensibly quaffs a drink to quell her fears of undressing, until the darker truth is revealed, but how did Maureen come to terms with the need to strip for the calendar photoshoot each show? “It was really funny because for about two weeks of rehearsals we didn’t really talk about it, and it became the elephant in the room!” she recalls.

“Then the director said there would be a meeting to talk about the photography scene – taking clothes off on stage was something I couldn’t imagine at my age! – but we talked about how much we would show, what we could wear, and then it’s one of those moments where you think, ‘oh, just get them off!’.

“It was all done so beautifully by our director, where we were really treated with respect. Every night, the tech team has to leave stage left.”

Back on the road, with four new cast members, after a winter break when she found time to appear as the Wicked Queen Cruella in Snow White in Cannock for a week, Maureen says: “I love, love, love going to York. It’s so beautiful.”

Calendar Girls The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, tomorrow (February 6) to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday matinees. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Did you know? Maureen Nolan’s real name is Marie Antoinette Nolan; Mo for short

North Yorkshire WIs to support Calendar Girls The Musical at Grand Opera House

The Calendar Girls The Musical cast, appearing at the Grand Opera House, York, from next Tuesday to Saturday. Picture: Jack Merriman

LOOK out for York and North Yorkshire East Women’s Institute Federation members at February 6 to 10’s performances of Calendar Girls The Musical at the Grand Opera House, York.

Celebrating the storyline of a cancer charity fund-raising group of ordinary women from a small Yorkshire Women’s Institute, they will have leaflets and information on hand in the public areas of the Cumberland Street theatre, giving audience members the chance to ask about the groups. 

Janice Whiteford, WI advisor for the North Yorkshire East Federation, says: “I think it’s marvellous that we’re able to highlight all the groups available in the area during the week at the Grand Opera House. There are lots of WI groups in the York and North Yorkshire East areas and we’d love to chat about the fun we have and encourage new people to join.”

Inspired by the true North Yorkshire story of the Calendar Girls at Rylstone Women’s Institute, who raised £5 million (and counting) for blood cancer research, the musical features songs by Take That’s Gary Barlow and a reimagined book by playwright Tim Firth.

What happens? Following the death to leukaemia of a much-loved husband, a group of ordinary women in a small Yorkshire Women’s Institute are prompted to do an extraordinary thing, whereupon they set about creating a nude calendar to raise money for charity.

However, upturning preconceptions is a dangerous business and none of the women are prepared for the emotional and personal ramifications they will face as the fabulous and funny calendar brings each woman unexpectedly into flower.

Who’s in the cast? Find out below. Picture: Jack Merriman

Calendar Girls The Musical brings together a touring cast of music, stage and television stars. Baring all in 2024 are Laurie Brett (EastEnders) as Annie; Liz Carney (The Full Monty, The Mousetrap) as Marie; Helen Pearson (Hollyoaks) as Celia; Samantha Seager (Coronation Street) as Chris; Maureen Nolan (The Nolans, Blood Brothers) as Ruth; Lyn Paul (The New Seekers, Blood Brothers) as Jessie and Honeysuckle Weeks (Foyle’s War) as Cora. 

They are joined by Colin R Campbell as John, Andrew Tuton as Rod, alongside Jayne Ashley, Lucas August and Victoria Hay in the ensemble.

The tour is supporting Blood Cancer UK, the charity dedicated to funding research into all blood cancers, including leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma, as well as offering information and support to blood cancer patients.

Every performance continues to add to the millions already raised for Blood Cancer UK and prove that there is no such thing as an ordinary woman. During next week’s run, collections will take place at the Grand Opera House to increase awareness and raise additional funds.

Calendar Girls The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, February 6 to 10, 7.30pm nightly plus 2.30pm Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday matinees. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Calendar Girls: the (front and) back story

THE real-life Calendar Girls launched a global phenomenon: a million copycat calendars, a record-breaking film, a stage play and Gary Barlow and Tim Firth’s musical, premiered at Leeds Grand Theatre in November-December 2015 under the original title of The Girls. The show coined the term “craughing”: the act of crying and laughing at the same time.

REVIEW: Peter James’s Looking Good Dead, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday ***

And your point is? Adam Woodyatt and Laurie Brett’s Tom and Kellie Bryce beg to differ in Looking Good Dead

TWO selling points mark out Looking Good Dead.

Firstly, it is the latest in the production line of Detective Superintendent Roy Grace cases to be transferred from page to stage, adapted from Peter James’s stack of best-selling crime thrillers by Shaun McKenna.

Secondly, Adam Woodyatt and Laurie Brett reprise their brand of marital bickering patented in the guise of Ian and Jane Beale in the aerated London soap wars of EastEnders.

Brett has joined Jonathan O’Boyle’s company for the tour’s second leg, taking over from Gaynor Faye, and her partnership with Woodyatt is marked by a fractious telepathy that only comes with years of performing together.

Brett is not the only new ingredient. After the press night, in a brief chat before he headed off to Mad Alice’s Bloody Tour of York, cast member Leon Stewart revealed the ending had been changed to make it less easy for amateur Roy Graces to detect.

Brett’s Kellie Bryce is hiding her supposedly dormant drink habit from her pre-occupied husband (Woodyatt’s Tom), sipping vodka from her water bottle when he is not around. She is forever cleaning the smartly decorated house, when not buying dresses and expensive foodstuffs.

Woodyatt’s Tom is a businessman, but a weary and brassic, greying and grizzled one after over-stretching himself, mortgaged to the hilt, and now he is in need of a fast financial fix.

Tom had arrived home with a USB memory stick left on a train, saying he wanted to contact whoever had left it behind. Smartass student son Max (Luke Ward Wilkinson) is a tech wiz, but when he helps  his dad to download the contents, they inadvertently witness a murder (Natalie Boakye’s Janie), enacted on a mezzanine level on Michael Holt’s slick set.

Don’t contact the police or tell your mum, says Tom, but that would rule out Roy Grace, wouldn’t it, and no Grace, no crime thriller. Ah, here he comes, on the design’s third piece in its jigsaw that slides in from the side to denote a slither of a police station. Harry Long’s matter-of-fact Grace is working in tandem with Leon Stewart’s Glenn Branson, his junior who loves a pun-laden joke.

Looking Good Dead moves at a cracking pace, with plenty of humour, some of it deeply cheesy, some of it rooted in the ebb and flow of family squabbles, but all the while James’s story is piling up twists and turns, intrigues and surprising revelations, weaving in new characters, such as Ian Houghton’s wealthy, smooth-talking American, Jonas Kent.

Didn’t-see-that-coming surprises prevail over suspense in script and direction alike, each conducted with a gleeful flourish that contrasts with the steady-eddie investigations of Long’s Grace in a story that takes in snuff movies, dung beetles, Wagyu steaks, even a modicum of social comment.

Looking Good Dead is fun, corny and self-aware, and if Woodyatt and Brett’s sparring in EastEnders left you cold, here comes their comic relief, unexpected but surprisingly enjoyable.

Looking Good Dead, Grand Opera House, York, 7.30pm tonight, Thursday and Friday; 2.30pm, 7.30pm, Saturday. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or at atgtickets.com/York

Review by Charles Hutchinson

More Things To Do in York to celebrate losing an hour’s lie-in tonight. Clock in to List No. 75, courtesy of The Press, York

Quick step: Jake Quickenden as dancing cowboy Willard in Footloose The Musical at York Theatre Royal

FROM Holding Out For A Hero to Search For The Hero, Charles Hutchinson is on a quest to find heroic deeds and much else to entertain you.

Musical of the week: Footloose at York Theatre Royal, Tuesday to Saturday

DANCING On Ice champ Jake Quickenden rides into York as cowboy Willard and musicals stalwart Darren Day plays Reverend Moore in Racky Plews’s touring production of Footloose The Musical.

Reprising the 1984 film’s storyline, teenage city boy Ren is forced to move to the rural American backwater of Bomont, where dancing and rock music are banned. Taking matters into his own hands, soon he has all hell breaking loose around him and the whole town on its feet. 

The set design, by the way, is by Sara Perks, who designed York Theatre Royal’s open-air show Around The World In 80 Days last summer and Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre productions in York. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Reunited: EastEnders soap stars Adam Woodyatt and Laurie Brett in the chilling thriller Looking Good Dead

Thriller of the week: Looking Good Dead, Grand Opera House, York, Tuesday to Saturday

AFTER playing bickering husband and wife Ian and Jane Beale in EastEnders for years and years, Adam Woodyatt and Laurie Brett are re-uniting, this time on stage in Shaun McKenna’s stage adaptation of Peter James’s thriller Looking Good Dead.

No good deed goes unpunished in this story of Woodyatt’s Tom Bryce inadvertently witnessing a vicious murder, only hours after finding a discarded USB memory stick.

Reporting the crime to the police has disastrous consequences, placing him and his family in grave danger. When Detective Superintendent Roy Grace becomes involved, he has his own demons to face while he tries to crack the case in time to save the Bryces’ lives. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.

Writer, journalist and historian Simon Jenkins: Appearing at York Literature Festival

Festival event of the week: York Literature Festival presents Europe’s 100 Best Cathedrals with Simon Jenkins, St Peter’s School, Clifton, York, tonight, 7pm

FOR Europe’s 100 Best Cathedrals, former editor of the Evening Standard and The Times Simon Jenkins has travelled the continent, from Chartres to York, Cologne to Florence, Toledo to Moscow, to illuminate old favourites and highlight new discoveries.

Tonight he discusses the book’s exploration of Europe’s history, the central role of cathedrals in the European imagination and the stories behind these wonders. Box office: yorkliteraturefestival.co.uk.

That Old Devil Moon, by Richard Kitchen, from Navigators Art’s Moving Pictures exhibition at City Screen Picturehouse

Exhibition of the week: Navigators Art in Moving Pictures, City Screen Picturehouse café and first-floor gallery, until April 15

FROM December’s ashes of the Piccadilly Pop Up Collective studios and gallery in the old York tax office, Navigators Art have re-emerged for a spring exhibition at City Screen.

For their first post-lockdown project, founder Navigators Steve Beadle and Richard Kitchen have invited fellow artist and teacher Timothy Morrison to join them for Moving Pictures: From Fan Art To Fine Art.

“The title is deliberately ambiguous, and we’ve responded to it accordingly,” says Richard. “There are works that relate to cinema and other media but also many of which interpret ‘Moving’ in other ways.”

BC Camplight: Examining madness and loss at The Crescent, York

Rearranged York gig of the week: BC Camplight, supported by Wesley Gonzales, The Crescent, York, Thursday, 7.30pm

MOVED from March 10, BC Camplight’s gig in York highlights the final chapter of his “Manchester trilogy”, Shortly After Takeoff.

“This is an examination of madness and loss,” says BC, full name Brian Christinzio. “I hope it starts a long overdue conversation.”

Fired by his ongoing battle with mental illness, Shortly After Takeoff follows 2018’s Deportation Blues and 2015’s How To Die In The North in responding to BC’s move from his native Philadelphian to Manchester. Cue singer-songwriter classicism, gnarly synth-pop and Fifties’ rock’n’roll. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.

Sanna Jeppsson’s Viola de Lesseps and George Stagnell’s Will Shakespeare in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Shakespeare In Love. Picture: Matthew Kitchen Photography

York premiere of the week: Pick Me Up Theatre in Shakespeare In Love, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, April 1 to 9

LEE Hall’s 2014 stage adaptation of Shakespeare In Love, the Oscar-winning film written by Tom Stoppard and Marc Norman, celebrates the joys of theatre in Pick Me Up’s first show of 2022.

Directed by Mark Hird, it recounts the love story of struggling young playwright Will Shakespeare (George Stagnell) and feisty, free-thinking noblewoman Viola de Lesseps (Sanna Jeppsson), who helps him overcome writer’s block and becomes his muse.

Against a bustling background of mistaken identity, ruthless scheming and backstage theatrics, Will’s love for Viola blossoms, inspiring him to write Romeo And Juliet. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Heather Small: Proud moment at York Barbican

Voice of the week: Heather Small, York Barbican, April 2, 7.30pm

BILLED as “The voice of M People”, soul singer Heather Small will be combining songs from her Nineties’ Manchester band with selections from her two solo albums.

As part of M People, she chalked up hits and awards with Moving On Up, One Night In Heaven and Search For The Hero and the albums Elegant Slumming, Bizarre Fruit and Fresco. The title track of her Proud album has since become a staple at multiple ceremonies.

At 57, she will never be one to rest on her laurels: “If you got the feeling I do when I sing, you’d understand,” she reasons. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Steven Jobson (Jekyll/Hyde) gets to grips with Matthew Ainsworth (Simon Stride) in rehearsals as York Musical Theatre Company director Matthew Clare looks on

Book early for: York Musical Theatre Company in Jekyll & Hyde The Musical, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, May 25 to 28

FLOOR rehearsals are well under way for York Musical Theatre Company’s spring production under the direction of Matthew Clare, who is delighted by how the cast is responding and supporting each other.

The epic struggle between good and evil in Jekyll & Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson’s tale of myth and mystery on London’s fog-bound streets, comes to stage life in Frank Wildhorn and Leslie Bricusse’s pop-rock musical, where love, betrayal and murder lurk at every chilling twist and turn.

YMTC are running an early bird discount ticket offer with the promo code of JEKYLL22HYDE when booking at josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk by April 10.

To Beale or not to Beale? What Adam Woodyatt’s doing away from EastEnders

Re-united: Adam Woodyatt and Laurie Brett go from husband and wife in EastEnders to husband and wife in Looking Good Dead

SOAP icon Adam Woodyatt, EastEnders’ longest-serving cast member, has taken to the stage in a play for the first time in 40 years.

After playing Ian Beale in the BBC series since 1985 – or about 1748, as he jokes – Adam is starring as Tom Bryce in Shaun McKenna’s world-premiere stage adaptation of Peter James’s crime thriller Looking Good Dead.

His next port of call from Tuesday will be the Grand Opera House, in York, in the wake of earlier conversions from page to stage of James’s Detective Superintendent Roy Grace series, The Perfect Murder and Dead Simple.

Welcome to York, Adam. “I was there last April actually, because I came up to see a friend. First time I’d been there,” he says. “What a lovely city…but sort your roadworks out!

“I went and did some cycling up there on the trans-Pennine route, and I went out and found some lovely woods over to the east of York. Really enjoyed it.”

Adam, 53, is on the second leg of a tour that began last July. “It’s been a lot of fun and we’re still having a lot of laughs,” he says. “You do always get a lot of dark humour out of situations in thrillers!

“As we’ve discovered, people laugh at the weirdest things. We’ll be thinking we’ll get a laugh out of them for something, then we don’t, but then they’ll laugh at something else and you think, ‘they laughed at that?’.”

No good deed goes unpunished in Looking Good Dead, where, hours after finding a discarded USB memory stick, Woodyatt’s Tom Bryce inadvertently becomes a witness to a vicious murder.

Reporting the crime to the police has disastrous consequences, placing him and his family in grave danger. When Detective Superintendent Roy Grace becomes involved, he has his own demons to contend with, while he tries to crack the case in time to save the Bryce family’s lives.

“Tom is a husband, a father, a businessman. It’s a very normal family unit,” says Adam. “The rowing husband and wife! The stroppy teenager! Everyone will be able to identity with that!

“When Tom finds the USB memory stick and tries to do a good deed, it sets off a chain of trouble for him.”

Cue the combination of dark humour and Peter James’s trademark thriller tension. “If you’ve got a comic on stage, he looks for laughs. In this show we’re trying to get gasps, the shock factor, and we do that,” says Adam.

Touching moment: Adam Woodyatt and Laurie Brett in Looking Good Dead

One component has changed since the first leg: Woodyatt is now playing opposite Laurie Brett, who just happened to play wife Jane to his Ian in the bickering Beale couple in EastEnders. “Gaynor Faye did the first leg up until November, but then she had another gig booked, and so Laurie has come in and she’s been brilliant to have in the show,” says Adam.

“It was great working with Gaynor, but there’s no denying there’s a connection with Laurie [who played long-suffering wife Jane from 2004 to 2017 in EastEnders]. Like when she looked in my eyes on stage as if to say, ‘well, that isn’t in the script’ when I’ve said my line!”

Adam recalls last being in a stage play in 1981. “It was On The Razzle at the National Theatre. Yes, I did have a career before soap – though I did start so young in EastEnders. I joined Sylvia Young’s [theatre school] at the age of nine in 1972 and I worked constantly until joining EastEnders in 1984 before the show opened in February 1985,” he says.

Adam, who was honoured in 2013 with the Lifetime Achievement Award and in 2015 with Best Actor at the British Soap Awards, has not cut his ties with the soap. “I haven’t left yet!” he protests.

Ah, but will he be back? “Look, it’s too many things. It isn’t just my decision. It’s their decision too. But there was never a case of ‘I’m leaving’ or ‘You’re leaving’. I just wanted to go off and do this play,” Adam explains.

“I fancied doing something different. Shane Ritchie said how much he’d enjoyed doing Peter James’s Not Dead Enough and The Perfect Murder. I’d looked at the possibility of doing The House On Cold Hill, and then this opportunity came up.”

Adam notes one contrast between working on stage and the small screen. “If you work in TV, you won’t find out if people like it until later, whereas in the theatre, the reaction is immediate,” he says.

“You don’t have a second take, so every show is slightly different, like when someone walks off stage before you deliver a line, or they use a slightly different intonation, or you do. That’s what makes every show unique – and I must admit I love it.

“We’ve had understudies throughout the tour [the ebb and flow of the actor’s Lateral Flow Test life in Covid times], and each actor’s tone or pace can be slightly different, so you have to react to that. That’s live theatre!”

EastEnders may be infamous for its suspenseful finale to each episode but Looking Good Dead has far more! “There are various cliffhanger moments throughout this play.  Several you can see coming; some you can’t. It’s fast paced; it’s entertaining. It’s like watching telly for two hours, but on a much wider screen!” says Adam.

Does he have unfulfilled stage ambitions? “I’ve done panto – the last one was at Swindon in 2019 – and it tends to be the more comical baddie that I play, there to have a laugh,” he says. “I keep offering to play dame, and one of these days, I hope they say ‘yes’,” he says.

“Maybe I could play Ugly Sister first. I’ve got someone in mind to do it with before they retire!”

Looking Good Dead runs at Grand Opera House, York, from March 29 to April 2. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or at atgtickets.com/York.

Copyright of The Press, York