It’s the show which has been a smash hit on film and stage and it’s all about a bunch of middle age women who take off their clothes.

Calendar Girls, with Elaine C Smith, Jennifer Ellison and Ruth Madoc, arrives at Glasgow’s Theatre Royal in three weeks’ time.

The play tells the real-life story of Yorkshire women who posed for a nude calendar to raise money for a hospital.

It was the idea of Women’s Institute widow Angela Baker.

Following her husband John’s diagnosis with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 1998, she hit upon the idea of printing a calendar featuring some of the members of Women’s Institute discreetly posing nude – while engaged in every-day activities, such as baking and knitting.

The cash raised was to buy a sofa for a ward.

As was shown in the hit film, which starred Helen Mirren, Julie Walters, Celia Imrie and Penelope Wilton, the head of the local WI chapter refused to sanction the calendar, but the women went to the national congress in London to plead their case.

They were told the final decision rested with the local leader, who grudgingly agreed to the calendar’s sale.

They enlisted a hospital worker, an amateur photographer, to help them with the concept.

The initial printing quickly sold out and soon the village was bombarded by international media to report the feel-good story.

The women were invited to appear on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in Los Angeles and that year sold 202,000 calendars.

But tensions arose and friendships break down.

For latest actresses to take to the stage, while the story is tough and thought provoking as well as funny, stripping off on stage has been a liberating experience.

“I didn’t feel too bad, as my shot was at the piano,” said Elaine.

“So though I had to be naked, it was my back that was exposed to the audience – it wasn’t full-frontal nudity.

“As the tour’s gone on, I’ve got braver and eventually didn’t care. I think my disrobing was liberating for many of the women in the audience of the not-so-skinny, 14-16 size. It certainly freed me up.

“The world has seen me in a flannelette nightie as Mary Doll in Rab C Nesbitt and wearing a skirt half way up my bum in Little Voice, so I might as well do the full monty.”

Upper Hand actor Joe MacGann and Doctor Who actor Bruno Langley also appear.

Former Coronation Street star Denise Black reveals her stint in the show will be particularly demanding.

She said: “When we’re in Glasgow, I’m going to be coming off stage at just after 10pm and getting in a car to drive to Edinburgh to do a two-hour Fringe set with my band at the Ghillie Dhu club from midnight.

“It’s mad but it’s exciting.”

The real Calendar Girls have raised £1.3 million for Leukaemia Research. And six of the 11 women pictured in the original calendar sold the rights to their stories.

Calendars have been produced in 2000, 2004, 2005, 2007 and a recipe calendar for 2008. Ten years on, the Calendar Girls have a new calendar and hope to raise £2m for Leukaemia Research.

• Calendar Girls, plays at the Theatre Royal, August 16-28.