As we waited to enter the theatre to see Tim Firth’s Calendar Girls it was ‘spot the man’ with the number of males significantly outnumbered by our female counterparts. However, I can assure you that every male in the audience enjoyed the show just as much.

What I love about Calendar Girls is that it is based on a true story and the film which starred Helen Mirren and Julie Walters has been successfully adapted for the stage which since 2008 has seen numerous celebrities getting their kit off just like the original Calendar Girls who have raised £2 million pounds for the Leukaemia Research Fund thanks to the WI Calendar.

The Calendar Girls for this production are Charlie Dimmock, Gemma Craven, Anne Charleston, Letitia Dean, Sue Holderness, Hannah Waterman and Elizabeth Bennett.

Hannah Waterman (Ruth) was the pick of the bunch as an extremely amusing, nerdy character. There are times throughout the show when some of the actresses would have been better projecting their voices rather than shouting.

The audience is emotionally involved throughout, from the highs of the photo shoot as each woman strips off to have her modesty covered by – buns, knitting, pianos, tea pots and marmalade the theatre is filled with laughter with the wonderful lines of ‘nude, not naked’, ‘we’re going to need considerably bigger buns’, ‘no front bottoms’ and ‘I will be spilling over until the Autumn’ – to the sadness of death.

Whilst this is a hilarious show it is also very poignant.

Calendar Girls runs until Saturday, 22 May at the Bristol Hippodrome