Following ticket sales of £25m, Calendar Girls has extended its tour for a further 11 weeks, giving Kent one more chance to see it. Swansea-raised star, Ruth Madoc spoke to Helen Geraghty.

I know Calendar Girls is set in Yorkshire and I know she’s a real pro. But it is still a shock to hear Ruth Madoc chatting away with a Yorkshire accent.

Forget the epitome of Welshness she portrayed in Hi-de-Hi and forget Ruth’s role as Dafydd Thomas’s mother in Little Britain.

After two years touring with the stage play, the accent of the perfectly lovely woman who I interview is definitely more Geoff Boycott than Gladys Pugh.

“What do you expect?” laughs Ruth, who turns 70 in the spring. “After all these years, I can change my accent, left, right and centre.”

There can’t be many who don’t know the plot is based on the true story of a group of Yorkshire women who produce a calendar to raise money for Leukaemia Research.

But how does Ruth fit in and does she have to take her clothes off?

“The plot is briefly about a woman called Annie who loses her husband. She is a member of the local WI group and she has a friend in the group who is quite go-getting and will make things happen.

“They decide that they want to raise money to buy a settee for the cancer ward where Annie’s husband died.

“They decide that they are going to do a quasi-nude calendar but they have to run this past the WI so, of course, the chairman has to be told. And I play the chairman, Marie, who says ‘no you can’t do it, because the WI don’t do things like that’.

“She has to be there as the protagonist, my role is to make sure there’s a centrifugal force so they can cavort around it.

“So, no, I don’t have to take my clothes off, although I wouldn’t mind that! I was in the Black and White Minstrels, you know. In those days, we changed at the side of the stage wearing a G-string and fishnets.”

Ruth is no stranger to the Assembly Hall Theatre at Tunbridge Wells, where the Calendar Girls will touch down from Monday, October 22. She says she has happy memories of the town from days when touring in an Agatha Christie play.

Is the touring hard work?

“It’s not been too bad. I’ve been on it for over two years. I’ve enjoyed it because the cast has changed every 12 to 14 weeks.

“So you have a new look and when you have a new actor playing a role, they bring something else to it, so you have to adapt. I’ve never been bored once, so the actual touring hasn’t seemed that arduous. Also my husband, John, comes with me. He’s retired. I’m retirement age really. Anyway, we both career around the countryside together.

“I’m nearly 70. There are many plus sides to touring but you have to pace yourself.”

Calendar Girls is at the Assembly Hall Theatre, Tunbridge Wells from Monday, October 22 to Saturday, October 27. Tickets from £24.50. Box office 01892 530613. The show also stars Lesley Joseph, Kacey Ainsworth, Camilla Dallerup, Helen Fraser, Sue Holderness, Deena Payne and Kathryn Rooney.