TELEVISION presenter and novelist Fern Britton is returning to the stage after a 30-year hiatus to star as the bossy Marie in Calendar Girls, The Musical, at Leeds Grand Theatre from tomorrow.

Gary Barlow and Tim Firth's show is back in Leeds with a new title, new cast and new set after its December 2015 premiere at the Grand and subsequent six-month West End run at The Phoenix Theatre in 2017.

Fern, daughter of actor Tony Britton, is joined by Karen Dunbar, Anna-Jane Casey, Sara Crowe, Ruth Madoc, Rebecca Storm and Denise Welch, who play the beloved fund-raising, clothes-dropping ladies of the Rylstone and District WI in Barlow and Firth’s musical comedy, based on the true story, the film and Firth's award-winning play.

Should Calendar Girls somehow have eluded you, it depicts how a group of Yorkshire ladies decided to strip off for a Women’s Institute calendar to raise money to buy a sofa for their local hospital, in memory of a husband lost to cancer, and to date have raised almost £5million for Bloodwise.

Barlow and Firth's musical shows life in their Yorkshire village, how the calendar happened, the effect on husbands, sons and daughters, and how a group of ordinary ladies achieved something extraordinary.

Fern Britton last performed in theatre shows in her days as a "local television girl" in Southampton, playing Dandini in Cinderella at the Mayflower in Southampton and Fairy Bow Bells in Dick Whittington at the King's Theatre in Southsea. "My King Rat was Michael Elphick, who I remember giving me some fake antique earrings after he said, 'I can't have my Fairy not wearing nice earrings'!"

York Press:

Writer Tim Firth, front left, with composer Gary Barlow, Fern Britton, back, second from left, and the Calendar Girls cast

Move forward 30 years, and Fern was facing the prospect of either a BBC job or a nine-month commitment to Calendar Girls. "I went for the BBC one but that then disappeared, and I thought, 'can I commit to nine months?', but I got an email to meet to meet Gary Barlow for a cup of tea, and they said they wanted me to read for the part of Marie," she recalls.

"I said, 'if I'm rubbish, just tell me', but I did the reading, it went well and they said 'you've got the job'. Tim [Firth] said he'd never heard Marie's role read like that before, and so he's been re-writing her a little bit for me."

Marie is "the southern one" among the Yorkshire WI members. "She joins the WI, volunteers to be chairman because no-one else wants to do it and she loves bossing people around and telling them what she thinks!" says Fern.

"She's the one who says mucky calendars are not what the WI should be about, but then rather basks in the glory of it all once the calendar takes off."

Will Fern be singing? "I'm afraid to say my singing voice will not be in much use, but I join in the big numbers, which is rather like going to an upmarket choir practice!" she says.

As for stripping off? "No, Marie is the one who keeps everything under wraps!" she says.

Calendar Girls, The Musical runs at Leeds Grand Theatre, tomorrow until September 1; Hull New Theatre, November 20 to 24. Box office: Leeds, 0844 848 2700 or leedsgrandtheatre.com; Hull, 01482 300 306 or hulltheatres.co.uk.