More than just comedy strippers

The Full Monty, Lowey, Salford
SIMON Beaufoy rewrites his movie of the famous steelworkers-turned-strippers story for the stage and the result, surprisingly, isn’t so much raucous and rude as something you might think of as “Calendar Boys”.

The show — not a musical, but with between-scenes Eighties pop — has the same feelgood, warm-hearted core as the famously soft-centred Tim Firth story of the stripping WI ladies - except with red leather posing pouches.

“Full Monty” the movie’s rough, no-nonsense comic realism here takes on a broader, less-realistic form, enlivened by Robert Jones’s brilliant industrial set design with its steelworks dereliction and scale, and the terrific cast and direction by Daniel Evans that is generally lively and fast-moving.

These guys have been thrown on the scrapheap by you-know-who’s late-Eighties Government but by golly, they’re going down naked…

The raw heart of the movie, the desperate search for money and self-esteem by the former steelworkers, is reduced to heart-to-heart chats between mates, or between central character Gaz (the excellent Kenny Doughty) and his young son or ex-wife (Caroline Carver, a TV actress woefully miscast), and is often sentimental and occasionally even quite touching — as anyone can tell from the sympathetic oohs, aahs and aaws of the predominantly female audience.

Many probably went for the fun of the stripper comedy — and likely got more than they bargained for, because the story holds up very well, with unexpected vigour, humour and character.

The strippers are well drawn, real people down on their luck but battling through, from fat Dave (Roger Morlidge) to the mix of famous faces in the large cast — from Oldhamers Kieran O’Brien as gay Guy and Craig Gazey as the flat and funny Lomper, through former “Bill” star Simon Rouse and one-time Corrie actress Tracey Brabin, to another Oldhamer, Ian Mercer, as a terrific mix of lesser characters.

If you can get a ticket — and it’s not going to be easy once word of mouth mops up the remaining ones, as sold-out runs elsewhere attest — then I’d recommend it heartily. But keep your hat on.