Bravely baring all to to raise money for a cancer charity, ladies from a WI branch of a sleepy Yorkshire village had a novel idea to make a unique calendar which ended up causing a worldwide phenomenon.

Now the famous story of the Calendar Girls has been turned into a fun, feel-good play which opened this week at the Gaiety Theatre.

The heart-warming tale of friends defying convention and expectations has been brought to the Manx stage by Stephanie Gray and Sonia Callin, who both appear in the cast.

Stephanie plays Annie, a member of the WI of the village of Knapely who is left bereft after her husband’s cancer diagnosis.

When her friends, lead Chris, played by Lisa Dancox, rally around her, they look to raise money for the local hospice.

But somehow, the idea of producing a calender of the bridges around Knapely just doesn’t seem to cut it.

Chris and Annie come up with a more eye-catching idea and pretty soon, fortified by a couple of bottles of wine, they are joined by their WI friends Cora, Jessie, Celia and Ruth, played by Sophie Rudge, Gill Buchanan, Gemma Quilliam and Kathryn Cawte in posing for the tasteful, yet cheekily-posed set of photographs that went on to unwittingly cause an international sensation.

All six girls make a great team on stage, from the vivacious Celia, who is the target of the famous line from the feature film ’We’re going to need considerably bigger buns’, to the shy and reluctant Ruth, the hilarious vicar’s daughter and church organist Cora and Jessie, who is determined not to let her age stop her from taking part.

Ably supported by a great cast, including Howard Caine, as Annie’s husband John, and Lorcan O’Mahoney, Simon Fletcher, Gary Chatel and Lindsay Quayle, Calendar Girls is both heart-warming and funny and a joy to watch.

Top marks have to go to the stage direction and choreography too, under the eye of director Ben Heath, as the scenes based around the photoshoot were tastefully and hilariously handled.

It’s an enjoyable show that is guaranteed to raise a smile and ties in nicely with the current zeitgeist, that life is to be cherished and enjoyed, no matter what it throws at you and life’s fleeting moments are there to be grasped.

That, along with the knowledge that this is the first and only play to be performed anywhere in the British Isles, makes it one worth seeing.