Acorn Antiques

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Clifford, Berta, Mrs Overall and Babs, as played by Duncan Preston, Victoria Wood, Julie Walters and Celia Imrie

Acorn Antiques is a parodic soap opera written by Victoria Wood as a regular feature in the two seasons of Victoria Wood As Seen On TV, which ran from 1985 to 1987. It was progressed into a musical, by Wood, in 2005.

The 'soap' spoofed British soap operas of the time (Wood cited the early years of Crossroads as an inspiration, although swipes were taken at current soaps such as Eastenders and Coronation Street) with their apparent low production values, theatrical acting, and wildly improbable plots.

Its premise - the lives and loves of the staff of an antiques shop in a fictional English suburb called Manchesterford - hardly reflects the ambitious and implausible story-lines, which lampooned the staples of soap operas: love triangles, amnesiacs, sudden deaths, and siblings reunited.

It also satirised the short-comings of long running dramas produced on small budgets with its little artificial-looking set, missed cues, crude camera work, and hasty script. A lack of continuity is seen in distinct lapses where storylines are introduced and dropped between episodes and character development is forgotten. One episode, for example, is introduced as reflecting the current interest in health fads with a plot where the antiques shop is merged into a 'Health spa and sunbed centre', never to be mentioned again.

References to other daytime television devices featured; after one episode a continuity announcer mentions an exhibition of costumes from the show touring English northern towns, and after another episode a range of novelisations is mentioned (bearing, it seems, little resemblance to screened storylines). The announcement that the show's theme tune was available to buy as Anyone Can Break A Vase sung by Miss Babs, was a reference to the release of Anyone Can Fall In Love, based on the EastEnders theme and sung by one of its cast members, Anita Dobson.

Victoria Wood also wrote and acted in a spoof arts documentary about the show for her As Seen on TV special, in keeping with similar straight-faced 'behind-the-scenes' shows produced about soap operas, which revealed the shambolic production of Acorn Antiques being put together, and interviewed the self-obsessed fictional actors behind the fictional characters. At one point, when an obvious continuity error is pointed, the producer 'Marion Clune' (played by Maggie Steed) summed up the directorial attitude: 'We professionals notice - Joe Public never clocks a darn thing.'

The show made a brief return to television in 1992 in Victoria Wood's All Day Breakfast, her satire on daytime television. A sketch of its soap, The Mall, ends with Mrs Overall returning to reopen Acorn Antiques, mentioning that the other principal characters had been killed in a bus crash (even though she herself had been killed off in the final episode of the original series).

[edit] The Musical

Acorn Antiques! - The Musical logo/Copyright Phil McIntyre Entertainments Ltd. All rights Reserved

Wood revived the concept to satirise musical theatre with Acorn Antiques: The Musical, directed by Trevor Nunn, which opened at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket in February 2005 for a three month sell-out run. Parodying successful musicals such as Les Miserables and Chicago, it also caricatured the trend for socio-realism in contemporary drama and the conventions of song and choreography in musicals. The play itself is about the television series being adapted as a gritty commentary on British suburban life. The concept is hijacked by the players who return it to its recognisable roots in the tv series. It featured three of the principal actors from the original reprising their roles (or, strictly, the parts of the fictional actors from the spoof documentary); Duncan Preston returned as Clifford as did Celia Imrie as Babs and Julie Walters as Mrs Overall. Victoria Wood alternated with Walters in that role, and her character Miss Berta was played by Sally Ann Triplett. The musical also introduced Miss Bonnie (Josie Lawrence), a sister of Miss Babs and Miss Berta (who are apparently sisters now and no longer cousins as they were originally).

The musical was received well by critics and quickly sold out. The original series and the musical were released on DVD in the UK in January 2005 and March 2006 respectively.

A routine from the show closed the 2005 BAFTA tribute to Victoria Wood.

In early 2006 it was announced that the musical would be revived and go on tour around the UK during the Winter season. It was revealed that Victoria Wood (the author) would direct the touring production and an all-new cast will be put together. Mrs Overall will be played by Ria Jones. The touring version essentially omits the London show's first act (in which the players struggle against their director's pessimistic social commentary), interpolating some of the main musical numbers which had featured there into a significantly expanded second act (the "straight" musical of Acorn Antiques).

Wood recently admitted that creating the musical was a "bad idea" as it harmed her credentials as a serious playwright.^[1]

[edit] Cast

• Miss Babs (Celia Imrie): the overwrought and lovelorn owner of Acorn Antiques, who moves from one crisis to another. Opens each episode on the phone introducing a never again mentioned plotline. Wife of Mr Kenneth, who was himself never seen on screen, mother of unnamed triplets (and, we discover in one episode, Trixie Trouble). Her torrid romances are hinted at but never seen. Distinguishing features include a birthmark shaped like a moped.

• Miss Berta (Victoria Wood): a partner in the business who begins the series emerging from intensive care to discover that her murdered father has been seen in the post office. She later develops amnesia and gets married to Clifford before discovering that she is not only the twin sister of Derek, but also the daughter of Mrs Overall, and the mother of an unnamed baby. In the musical version, Berta is revealed to be Babs's sister: both siblings are the daughters of Mrs Overall.

• Clifford (Duncan Preston): the stolid, reliable leading man whose advances are rejected by Babs. Shortly afterwards he reveals he has married Miss Berta who is suffering from amnesia. In the musical, it is revealed that Mr Clifford's Father knew of the paternity of the triplets, since he had sheltered the pregnant Mrs Overall, one rainy night.

• Mrs Overall (Julie Walters): the elderly tealady, who believes all problems could be solved with a nice cup of tea, a macaroon and an anecdote. She is revealed to be the sole beneficiary of Berta's father's will, and mother of Miss Berta and Derek. The character is based on that of Amy Turtle from Crossroads. The rather grand actress who "plays" Mrs Overall (Bo Beaumont) was a former lover of Lord Delfont.

• Trixie (Rosie Collins): also known as Trixie Trouble, a fiesty, tarty femme fatale who works in the antiques packing department until she discovers she is Miss Babs' daughter. After her off-screen marriage to Bobby she mentions having had jaundice, 'lots of' extra-marital relationships (which may have included Derek, with whom she was in a car crash), and is seduced by her mother's cousin Jerez, shortly before she briefly runs away to Morocco with Derek. She returns to become a nun, and later a Mother Superior.

• Derek (Kenny Ireland): the handyman, and revealed latterly Miss Berta's twin brother and Mrs Overall's other child. A long running affair with Miss Babs is hinted at and is briefly rekindled when his unseen girlfriend Marie-Therese Francine Dubois runs off, but this is interrupted by Trixie, with whom he also seems to have a relationship. He and Trixie later announce that they are 'travelling overland to Morocco' to find Trixie some nice jumpsuits. It is also mentioned that he and Clifford are secretly playing the accordion and the ukelele together. Derek is based on the character Benny from Crossroads.

• Cousin Jerez (Peter Ellis): the foreign villain of the series, and previously unmentioned Spanish cousin of Miss Babs, who makes a rejected offer to buy the shop. Undaunted he disguises himself as a postman to misdirect mail which would have warned Babs of a new motorway to be built nearby. His plans are thwarted by Clifford but not before he has attempted to seduce Trixie. He later returns, completely reformed, while on his way to begin a sandwich course in computers at Fuengerola Polytechnic, and gives Babs £25,000, thus conveniently solving a cashflow problem at the shop.

• Extras (Albert Welch & Michaela Welch): the only customers to appear in the entire series. An elderly couple who appear at the beginning of every episode, looking at an antique and leaving the shop.

[edit] External links

• Victoria Wood
• As Seen On TV
• Acorn Antiques: The Musical!