The Women’s Institute, some of whose members once shocked the UK by posing nude for a charity calendar, swap their X rated behaviour for X Factor inspired style as they create a singing competition with a prize that will be a record deal with Universal Music worth 1 million pounds.

A spokesman for Universal Records said: “We’re thrilled to have this unique deal with the WI to launch the winning group – who will be known as The Harmonies – and plan to invest over 1 million pounds in the project.”

The Harmonies will be made up of five talented members of the Women’s Institute, hand picked from the 205,000 members across the 6,500 WIs across the UK.  Not surprisingly, this group will be the very first time the WI will have produced a chart eligible music act.

The search for The Harmonies began in February when a call to entry was distributed to all WI members via their magazine, WI Life, to send in a demo showcasing their vocal talents. Met with an impressive number of applications, the judges began the difficult task of selecting the entries.  Including a staggering 600 renditions of Jerusalem, the entrants were reduced to a shortlist of 30 brilliant finalists. That 30 were invited to the legendary Abbey Road Studios to perform live in front of a panel of judges from the production company behind Pixie Lott and The Waterboys for the concluding audition.