West Midlands men planning credit crunch Full Monty

Apr 19 2009 by Jonny Greatrex, Sunday Mercury

JUST two months ago these Midland men were facing uncertain futures.

With work drying up and redundancies being handed out, they wondered how they would survive the recession.

But the saucy six are now set for stardom after being challenged to go from complete novices to Full Monty-style male strippers in just 10 days, as part of a new TV documentary.

They are currently in rehearsals and plan to perform their act in front of hundreds of screaming women in Wolverhampton next weekend.

Tony Levy, 58, Andy Lees, 45, Mark Minton, 36, Nicholas Vassell, 35, Lee Marlow, 23 and 20 year-old Jack Sargeant were all either unemployed or struggling to keep their jobs as electricians, plumbers and security guards.

But after battling through a gruelling audition process against nearly 100 other hopefuls, they secured their place in the Midland version of the smash hit 1997 film The Full Monty.

The movie saw six unemployed Sheffield steel workers trying to earn some extra cash by going ‘all the way’ in a striptease act.

And the modern credit crunch version is no different.

But instead of performing on a film set the brave Midland men will be doing it for real in front of a frenzied audience at Wolverhampton’s Wulfrun Hall on April 26.

Unemployed shop fitter Andy Lees is leading the group and said: “We’ve got just 10 days to pull this off.