Dave Simpson’s The Naked Truth is the latest in a series of plays in which a bunch of completely unsuited amateurs put on a show for charity. It follows on from The Full Monty, Calender Girls and Stepping Out, but in this case five women have a go at pole dancing.

We meet Tricia (Julie Buckfield), a tactless blonde big-mouth; Faith (Alison Young, pictured right, above), who is naïve beyond belief and speaks in a rising whine; shy Sarah (Maureen Nolan), Confident Rita (Claire King), and roly-poly Bev, (Leanne Jones, pictured), the most unlikely pole-dancer of all. In charge of them, and of the three on-stage poles, is Gabby, engagingly played by former Liberty X star Michelle Heaton, who brings a touch of glamour, and shows that, when it comes to pole dancing, she can really do the business.

Between the classes we get to know more about the characters, and this gives the play a little more depth. Sarah is building confidence after a mastectomy, Rita’s husband leaves her, and Tricia wants a boob-job because under her brash exterior she is full of self-doubt.

Alison relates her first experiences with a man, and warm-hearted, promiscuous Bev pinches Tricia’s partner. Most of the humour comes as the gradually bonding women discuss their sex lives, or the lack of it. The ‘naked’ of the title refers to the way the ladies reveal their innermost feelings, not to the way they dress, and by the time we come to the charity performance itself we have come to like this courageous bunch, and are rooting for them even though, Heaton apart, they are basically clueless at what they have set out to do.

This is a play with no intellectual pretensions. It’s a lighthearted evening, and the mainly female audience loved it. There were hoots of laughter throughout, and cheers at the end.