That's Gaynor for you - frank, fearless and fun. She talks cheerfully about anything from Coronation Street to Dancing On Ice, and on fitness, food and family life.

Calendar Girls marks her returns to theatre after a 15-year absence. 'I love writing, TV acting and theatre acting,' she says. 'Why do one thing all the time when you can do lots?'

Tim Firth's new play is based on his own film about real-life Women's Institute members in Yorkshire who bared all for a charity calendar, and Gaynor is not abashed at the prospect of (decorous) nudity.

'I always said I would only consider it if it was really needed in the writing and was not just for titillation.

'So I was happy to do nudity in Between The Sheets on television, which was all about sexuality and sex addicts, and obviously Calendar Girls is all about women taking their clothes off.

'It was a massive deal for those WI ladies to do what they did and it's a big deal for us, but being in the business we are slightly more extrovert, I suppose, than most WI ladies.'

She says the play is quite different from the film in some ways, focusing much more on the women and what brings them together.

As a mere 30-something , Gaynor is one of the younger ones in the cast. Others include Lynda Bellingham, Patricia Hodge and Sian Phillips.

Gaynor's success in Dancing On Ice, defeating Stefan Booth and Bonnie Langford in the final, came in 2006. Did it give her the confidence in her body to appear in Calendar Girls?

'It was great for my self-esteem,' she acknowledges, 'but I would have done the play even before that.

'Dancing On ice wasn't just about my body but about the way it made me feel - the fact that I gained a hobby and a skill and excelled in it.
It made me realise you don't have to regress but can take up anything at any point in your life and still succeed in it.

'I have known women who have figures to die for but are still not happy. We all have something about ourselves we aren't happy with. We all have our little wobbly bits.

'But we shouldn't all look the same. The original WI ladies were all different sizes and shapes.'

Gaynor dropped two dress sizes during Dancing On Ice, but she adds: 'I want people to realise I'm not into women looking like sticks. I'd had two children and was probably a stone overweight.

'I was probably at my physical peak after that and I loved the mental agility that gave me. If I hadn't been so physically fit I would probably have keeled over because I was going between Leeds, where I was doing The Chase, and London, learning routines for Dancing On Ice.

'But it's hard to keep the weight off. When you're looking after a three-year-old and cooking her dinner and yours isn't for another hour or two, you tend to eat the leftovers.

'In fact I would dole out four gujons for her and two for me, and I haven't learnt the trick of putting a soggy teabag on leftover food to stop myself eating it!'

Nor is it only motherhood that leads Gaynor astray.
'The other day we went to the supermarket with good intentions to buy healthy food and the first thing we bought was crispy cream doughnuts. That's really bad, isn't it?' She laughs shamelessly.

After an early career in theatre, Gaynor made her name in a big way as Judy Mallett in Coronation Street from 1995-99 before deciding to leave because she had become an actress to play many different characters.

'I loved my time in Coronation Street and had fantastic storylines - blackmail, infertility, I bought a child, lost a child, got pregnant with twins, lost my mother, then had the twins.'

But she was advised that after five years she would find it difficult to be accepted in other parts.

'Even so, it wasn't until Dancing On Ice that I shook off Judy Mallett,' she adds.

The actress originally worked under her real name of Gaynor Kay Mellor but changed it to escape automatic associations with her mother, writer Kay Mellor.

She devised Playing The Field and wrote the first two series but although Gaynor was 'desperate' to be in it, she says, she was excluded 'because I was Kay Mellor's daughter.

'Imagine knowing there's a great northern writer creating a great northen character and you can't do it although you're out of work. How heartbreaking is that?

'I didn't join it until the fourth series when I had changed my name and broken the automatic link with my mother - and she no longer had anything to do with it.'

Even now, Gaynor punches the air in delight as she describes hearing of her casting at last and exclaiming 'Yeh!'

Her character in Fat Friends, Lauren, was based on her, 'because that's what writers do,' she says. 'Everyone a writer writes about is based on someone. It has to be. it's just common sense.'

Gaynor speaks from personal knowledge there, having written the first two episodes of the fifth series of Playing The Field, some of the second and third series of Fat Friends and some of The Chase.

'I had done a lot of script editing of my mum's work,' she says. 'They were looking for new writers and asked if I would do a trial script.'

All three series, she says, are now gone for ever - but she holds out a smidgen of hope for Fat Friends fans.
'We sometimes wonder about doing a Christmas special because we all loved it so much and feel we don't want to let it go,' she says.

*Calendar Girls runs from September 5-27. Tickets: (01243) 781312.