Portsmouth Players bare all in The Calendar Girls - The Musical, coming soon

The show tells the story of a group of ordinary women in a small Yorkshire Women’s Institute who are prompted to do an extraordinary thing – creating a nude calendar – following the death of one of their husbands from cancer.

The story of the Calendar Girls launched a global phenomenon: a record-breaking movie, stage play and this musical written by Tim Firth and Take That’s Gary Barlow.

​And now the Players are staging it at their HQ – The Barn in Milton Park, from June 26 to July 1.

Jo says: ‘I ironically play the chair of the WI of Knapely village, in Yorkshire, where it's set. She’s a bit of an outsider who’s just arrived from another WI group in Cheshire. So holding the role at the Players as well – it’s a double-whammy!’

Jo says she has been part of the Players for ‘30-odd years.’

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‘In the last couple of years I've become more involved with the committee and became chair. I felt I was in a position to get more involved and give something back having had so many fantastic opportunities over the years, it was nice to be able to do something a bit different.’

Now though she is back on the stage as Marie, the WI chairwoman who is sceptical of her branch’s fundraising scheme.

‘I hadn't seen the musical until we started working on it,’ says Jo, ‘it was new to me, and I'm not sure I'd seen the film either. But I was conscious of it and aware of the empowerment of this group of women and the very strong link to the cancer that John dies of.’

Because of the subject matter of the show, Jo was keen for them to support a local charity – and they have teamed up with the Karen Ingram Foundation, for non-Hodgkin lymphoma research.

‘We're donating some of our proceeds to their charity. We were at Pride [on Southsea Common earlier this month], and they came along to that with us and they're going to be at each performance.’

The cast have also made their own nude calendar, which will also benefit the foundation.

‘The whole cast have been fantastic,’ says Jo, ‘they've absolutely gone for it and we had some fantastic photos done and we've printed our very own calendar.

‘They had a huge amount of fun doing it too – there was a lot of giggling and a lot of laughter.’

And how have they found the nude aspect of the show?

‘Actually doing the calendar, one of the girls said that the biggest mindset to get past was that first time they were all together and did the first photographs, and that for them was great. All their intimacy is respected and covered, they're not feeling totally exposed, but I have huge respect admiration for each and every one of them – it's a very brave thing to do in front of a live audience.

‘It's all the messages that go with it – they're not doing it for themselves, they're doing it for the awareness. It's a very touching and compassionate story.

‘It’s about saying: “It’s bigger than this, it's not about us, it's about telling the story”, and they've achieved that wonderfully.

For tickets go to book.events/portsmouthplayers.