Cheeky calendar will be box office success for hospice

It’s an eagerly awaited sequel that features nudity and ‘scenes of a disturbing nature’ yet, according to its director, it’s definitely a U-certificate production.
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The Salehurst Halt’s naked calendar is returning after a three-year absence - this time with a cinematic theme. Pub staff and regulars - 26 in total - stripped off to recreate versions of the posters for a number of classic movies including Pulp Fiction, American Beauty and Basic Instinct.

And sales from the calendar will be donated to St Michael

Andrew Augarde, landlord of the award-winning hostelry which was named one of the country’s top 50 gastro-pubs by The Independent newspaper, came up with the idea and masterminded the project.

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He says: “As usual, it’s all very tastefully done although, given the state of some of our male models, I did wonder if we should include a warning about “scenes of a disturbing nature”.

“During the shoot there was certainly a lot of strong language and, with our photographer precariously perched at the top of a very tall ladder, quite a bit of mild peril.’

Shooting was meticulously planned and took place at Robertsbridge Club over the course of a single day.

The photographer David Merewether and art director Clive Crook, who worked on both of the Halt’s previous calendars, recreated the posters for Pulp Fiction, For Your Eyes Only, American Beauty, Basic Instinct, Forrest Gump, Nosferatu, Pretty Woman, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, Psycho, A Clockwork Orange and The Great Escape.

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When one Halt regular who was scheduled to model for one of the posters was unable to make it, a customer of the Robertsbridge Club was drafted in at very short notice.

“He’d only come in to watch the football and now he’s naked in a calendar which, if it sells like our previous projects, could end up all over the world,” says Augarde.

The pub’s first two calendars, for the years 2009 and 2012, each raised thousands of pounds for St Michael’s Hospice in St Leonards-on-Sea. Orders were received from as far afield as Australia and South Korea.

The 2015 ‘Going To The Movies’ calendar will be available throughout December for £10 or £20 for three. Printing costs have been covered by business sponsors so all the proceeds go to St Michael’s Hospice.

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