Delight for Wood fans

dinnerladies, Palace, Manchester

I WOULDN’T say I was Victoria Wood’s biggest fan but she is probably the funniest woman writer and stand-up this country has ever seen. There, I said it.

She is a wordsmith capable of turning the most mundane exchange or situation into comic gold, with no more than a carefully-chosen non-sequitur or surreal exaggeration. She has Alan Bennett’s ear for the language, beats him for comedy and doesn’t fall far behind in sheer humanity.

So it maybe comes as a surprise to consider that her greatest achievement so far is probably 16 episodes — yes, only 16 — of a sit-com about canteen workers.

This “dinnerladies” is Victoria Wood but not Victoria Wood, in that the stage adaptation’s director, David Graham, has mashed together scripts from the show’s second series — the big Tony/Bren romance — with minor updating and some slightly extended scenes for Oldham co-star Sue Devaney, reprising her role as secretary Jane. Wood has then, JK Rowling-like, approved virtually every aspect of the result, from script to cast.

The result is a fairly joyful exercise that delights Wood’s legion of fans.

The stage show was in Manchester last year with original cast members Andrew Dunn as Tony and another famous Oldhamer, Shobna Gulati, as dim-witted Anita. For this tour, Sue joins Andrew and an extraordinary group of soundalike/lookalike actors who manage to make you believe they are the living embodiment of Dolly (Gay Lambert), Jean (Stella Ross), Stan (Barrie Palmer), Petula (Tamsin Heatley) and even HR woman Philippa (though actress Sarah Head is the only member of cast who looks nothing like the original performer, Celia Imrie).

While this stage show, like live versions of other famous TV comedies such as “Porridge” and “Dad’s Army”, adds virtually nothing to the original — not even the challenge of a live audience, since Wood’s show was filmed in front of one — it provides an interesting opportunity, if you like, to commune with fellow fans who didn’t get the chance to attend one of those studio recordings.

This might be a fairly slim reason to attend — especially for anyone who has found the almost-endless repeats of both series on digital TV — but this is brilliant comedy that hasn’t dated a day since it was first written 10 years ago.

Which is more than you can say for the job of company dinner lady…