‘Acorn Antiques: The Musical!’ is a musical adaptation of the Victoria Wood written parodic sopaopera of the same name. It follows the lives of a group of staff who work at an antiques shop in the fictionalised town of Manchesterford. Designed to poke fun at soap operas of the time the show was famous for it’s wobbly sets, over acting, low production values and onscreen crew. ‘Acorn Antiques’ was a regular feature on the two seasons of ‘Victoria Wood as seen on tv’.

As the concept of the show was to poke fun at soap operas, Victoria Wood made the decision to turn the show into a musical in order to satirise the construct of musical theatre itself. The musical had direction and choreography from West End royals Trevor Nunn and Stephen Mear respectively, and opened at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in February 2005 for an instant sell-out run. Three of the original cast members reprised their original roles; Celia Imrie as Babs, Duncan Preston as Clifford and Julie Walters shared the role of Mrs Overall with Victoria Wood herself. As the original tv show parodied soaps such as Crossroads and Coronation Street, Acorn Antiques parodies famous musicals such as ‘Chicago’ and ‘Les Miserables’. Other opening night cast members included Sally-Ann Triplett, Jenna Boyd, Josie Lawrence and Neil Morrissey.

The concept of the musical follows the fictional actors from the show reprising their roles from the stage musical in the rehearsal process. They become at odds with the director who wants to make the show a gritty social commentary and highjack it back to its roots to take to the west end. The second act is the actual musical within a musical focusing on the woes that fell upon the workers during an average day at ‘Acorn Antiques’.

The musical itself received mixed reviews and was criticised for lacking depth and essentially turning a sketch into a night three-hour musical. However, the performances especially that of Julie Walters and Celia Imrie were triumphed, the latter of who won the Olivier for best performance in a supporting role in a musical. The production was also filmed and released on DVD in 2006. The musical went on a UK tour in 2006 with Wood in the director’s chair. She also took this time to restructure and rewrite the show, completely removing the first act and turning the whole show solely into the musical of ‘Acorn Antiques’. The new production received much more positive reviews off critics. In 2010 the show was made available for amateur licensing.

The DVD is available on Amazon and the show is an absolute riot that provided my friends and years of fun to this day!

Warning Besties, the songs from this show do contain some strong language!!!

FACTS:

Music: Victoria Wood
Lyrics: Victoria Wood
Book: Victoria Wood

Theatre: Theatre Royal Haymarket

Run: Feb-May 2005 (roughly 96 shows)

OLIVIERS

(NOMINATED) Best new musical, Best actress in a musical – Julie Walters

(WON) Best performance in a supporting role in a musical – Celia Imrie