To paraphrase the riposte from the trial that followed the Profumo affair: "Well, she would pose like that, wouldn't she?"

Emma Williams, who plays prostitute Christine Keeler in musical A Model Girl, based on the scandal, re-creates the iconic pose Keeler adopted for photographer Lewis Morley at the storm's height in 1963.

Producers hope to introduce younger audiences to the Profumo affair, when Keeler slept with married defence minister Jack Profumo while conducting an affair with Soviet naval attache Yevgeny Ivanov.

Profumo's denial in the House of Commons that he had slept with Keeler led to his resignation and arguably contributed to the Macmillan government's downfall.

Williams, 23, whose previous musicals include Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, was forced to quit as the alternative Maria in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sound Of Music in August after Connie Fisher, who won the role on BBC TV, said she wanted to star at the Palladium in all eight shows a week.

Williams said posing nude astride a chair was "terrifying", adding: "I've been single for quite some time and the only person who has seen me naked recently is my cat, so it was slightly awkward to walk into a room full of people."

She is taking a humanities degree at the Open University which covers the era she is depicting on stage. She said: " Everyone I know has an opinion of the Profumo affair. But I'm hoping that those who see A Model Girl will make up their own mind." Keeler, 64, has refused to meet the cast. Richard Alexander, who co-wrote the musical with Marek Rymaszewski, said: "The Profumo scandal has always been a musical waiting to be written. It's the defining moment when private life became public property."

• A Model Girl is at the Greenwich Theatre from 30 January until 24 February.