There has been no holding back Lynda Bellingham since she bagged a role in Calendar Girls. She told Chris Price why it is time to give it up for the over-50s.

Casting Lynda Bellingham in Calendar Girls has been something of a masterstroke. Resolute to the last that actresses aged 50-plus should not just “become invisible”, Lynda is enjoying a resurgence much like the WI the show is based on.

Since her days as the mum on the Oxo adverts, Lynda has been watched by more than 10,000 women a week in her role as Chris in Calendar Girls, has appeared on Strictly Come Dancing and has become a regular panellist on Loose Women.

The 63-year-old actress feels an affinity with the power shown by the group of ladies from Yorkshire who posed naked for a charity calendar in 1999. Their story earned them worldwide fame and was made into a film in 2003 starring Helen Mirren and Julie Walters before being launched as a stage show in 2008. “I have reached a certain age where you can become invisible and I don’t agree,” said Lynda.

“We are all living longer and you don’t have to sit down and wait to die when your husband retires. You have got to get out there and give it some welly.” As an original member of the cast for the stage show, Lynda has seen it all before – if you will pardon the pun. She no longer feels nerves about getting her clothes off on stage although she does laugh as she recalls the photoshoot for the poster. She said: “You are all standing around having a coffee and a chat then the photographer gets you to stand behind the piano and suddenly says 'gowns off ladies’. Then there is this silence as everyone does it.

“There is this bizarre moment when everyone feels completely vulnerable and, without fail, everyone stares into each other’s eyes. Then the photographer says 'a bit closer together’ and you are stood with your left breast against someone else’s arm. It is ridiculous really.”

Calendar Girls goes on its final tour next year. Since it began, the show has grossed more than the film, which Lynda puts down to genuine comedy and a heartwarming storyline. “The scene where the women take their clothes off to have their photographs taken is like a ballet. It lasts about 20 minutes and is a highlight of the play because it is so hysterically funny. In 40 years I have never been in a play where the audience laugh like that.

“It is all about the audience not seeing it. We rehearse where the buns go and all the flower positions. It is all about the actors helping out each other. She added: “What those WI women did more than 12 years ago and the impact it has had on families since is phenomenal.

“When I was offered Calendar Girls I realised it was about so much more than girls taking their kit off. It is about the role of women and how those ladies tried to make money in memory of their friend’s husband. “That is what holds the show together. If it was just about taking our clothes off there would be no success.”