Full Monty play gets West End run

The Full Monty play features Kenny Doughty (right) as Gaz, the role taken by Robert Carlyle on screen

A stage version of hit 1997 film The Full Monty is to get a West End run.

The story of six steelworkers-turned-strippers was adapted for the theatre by the film's writer Simon Beaufoy and has been on a successful UK tour.

It will be at the Noel Coward Theatre in London for 16 weeks between February and June 2014.

When it was premiered in Sheffield this February, The Times' critic Donald Hutera said it "can't top the film but, happily, equals it".

The play, directed by Sheffield Theatres artistic director Daniel Evans, stays true to the tale of the unemployed Sheffield mates who find themselves on the scrap heap of life after their factory shuts.

They decide to stage a male strip show to boost their bank balances and self-esteem.

The actors include Kenny Doughty, who fills the role played by Robert Carlyle in the film, ex-Coronation Street star Craig Gazey and Simon Rouse, known for playing The Bill's Jack Meadows.

They do go the full monty, stripping off completely at the climax of the play - but clever lighting spares the actors' blushes.

The tour has been a particular hit with female audiences. Describing the atmosphere in the audience during the final striptease scene at the premiere at the Sheffield Lyceum, Daily Mail critic Quentin Letts wrote that "the wenches of Sheffield growled like Jensen Interceptors at the traffic lights".