Forget The Golden Girls... here come The Worthing Girls!

The Golden Girls aired on NBC from 1985-1992, starring Beatrice Arthur, Betty White, Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty in a tale of four older women who share a home in Miami, Florida. Now comes The Worthing Girls, the tale of four older women who share a home in… Worthing.

The new musical is being presented in a workshop, concert-style version as a try-out in the hope of a future full-scale production. It brings together music and lyrics by Barb Jungr and book by Sue Teddern. The show will feature Dillie Keane, Gillian Bevan, Gillian Kirkpatrick and Rebecca Wheatley. Performances, presented by James Seabright in association with WTM, will be on Friday and Saturday, September 5-6 in Worthing’s Connaught Studio.

Barb, who lives just on the edge of Worthing, said the show for the moment would be a workshop concert performance after two weeks of rehearsals and with the performers standing at music stands.

“The hope is that it will lead to a full production and that it will have a continued life that includes movement. But right now I am not allowing myself to think about that. I'm just thinking about this workshop performance coming up and just thinking about making sure that the songs are in the best state that they can possibly be in. Obviously one dreams beyond but it's good to keep your focus on step one of climbing Everest. Step one is getting the right boots. Step two is breaking them in and then step three is wandering around in the foothills!

“Sue Teddern has written the book and I have written the music and songs. It's about four women sharing a house on Worthing seafront. The starting point is that it was inspired by The Golden Girls, the TV series that was set in Florida. The show is like ancient history on TV but you can see clips of it on Instagram all the time. It featured these four women in effectively a sitcom, and the premise is that they are sharing this house together but the point is that they are not 18. There are golden girls!

“I have always thought it was a great series. It couldn’t not be with that cast, and the writing was wonderful. It was also very funny and there had been nothing like it. I always imagined that there would be lots of spin-offs but there hasn't been anything at all, which is extraordinary. I thought that there would be British versions. We are not making a British one with this. We are inspired by it.

“The Worthing Girls is about friendship, and it is about friendship forged by necessity. In our piece, Ruby who is in her early 60s inherits this house from her ex-husband who was not very nice. He was not a very good person. It's on the seafront at Worthing and it needs lots doing to it but she has not got lots of money. The next thing that happens is that her mother is thrown out of her care home. Her mother moves in but she is not bringing in any rent. And then her friend turns up, and she is one of those friends that you have in life that you don't really know why you've got as a friend. She doesn't have any money either. So she manages to get a lodger in her late 50s who has been caring for her mother and the mother has now died. Now she is going to have fun and live her life to the full.”

Tickets through Worthing Theatres.