BBC One
On the surface, it was a very British story: 11 members of the local Women’s Institute, a prim and proper local ladies’ club, decided to raise money for a cancer charity by shooting their traditional calendar in a very untraditional way. Behind the usual baked goods, the apple pressing and the flower arrangements were the eleven women …. completely nude.
The calendar became a global phenomenon, raising almost two million pounds for Leukaemia Research, inspiring a Hollywood film and a record-breaking West End stage show, and taking the women on a rollercoaster adventure that would change their lives forever.
They had no idea the calendar would be such a success.
A decade on, and after an emotional split tore the original team in half, six of the Calendar Girls are reuniting to bare all for the cameras one final time, and we’re behind the scenes of their photo shoots. They joke that they’ll need bigger props to pose behind, but little else has changed for the ladies of Rylstone WI.
The Calendar Girls are back together, and we’re following the creation of their new 2010 calendar. This is the story of how a group of normal middle aged women from the Yorkshire Dales united in the face of grief, inspired the world and changed the reputation of the WI forever.