THERE can’t be many folk who are unaware of the true story behind Tim Firth’s play; the women from a rural Yorkshire branch of the WI who have raised more than £3m for the Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research Fund, beginning by posing nude for a calendar.

Their original aim was to raise enough to buy a new sofa for the visitors’ room at the hospital where Angela Baker’s husband, John, received treatment for lymphoma.

Sadly, John died before the Calendar Girls burst upon the international news scene, but he remains the inspiration for everything they do and his favourite sunflowers have become the symbol of their fundraising efforts.

The story was filmed in 2003 by Buena Vista, a major Hollywood studio, and the play’s dialogue sticks fairly closely to that of the movie.

What’s so lovely about Calendar Girls is that, although its audience is largely female, it’s not some raucous “girls’ night out” affair loaded with raunchy ladette jokes. These are real women dealing with real challenges.

Yes, the humour is certainly there, providing more laughs than I’ve had in a long time.

But it’s gentle humour, the sort of ribbing that goes on between friends, interspersed with comic situations like the Great Victoria Sandwich Scam.

There’s so much that’s enjoyable about this mix of comedy and pathos, and the starry cast of well-known faces does an excellent job of being perfectly normal, which is much harder than it looks.

So chaps, this isn’t just a play for women. It’s funny and inspirational and breaks across any gender barriers.

• Until Saturday. Box office: 01325-486555

Kay Hastier