HOW better to remember Victoria Wood, who died so suddenly in April, than by staging one of her humorous works.

York Musical Theatre Company will be doing exactly that next week when presenting her daft and delightful spoof Acorn Antiques, The Musical, at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York.

Wood's all-singing, all-dancing, all-macarooned show follows the lives and loves, the marigold gloves and macaroon adventures of staff at an antiques shop in the fictional town of Manchesterford. When shop after shop on the high street closes, will Miss Berta and Miss Babs keep the business open? Will Mr Clifford recover from his amnesia and remember who his fiancee is? Most importantly, can Mrs Overall keep hold of her tea tray while she tap dances?

Taking the roles of Miss Berta and Miss Babs respectively will be Kelly Derbyshire and Kathryn Addison, who relish playing such comical characters. "Miss Berta is rather desperate, but she's also sickeningly positive, no matter what comes her way," says Kelly.

"She's desperately in love with Mr Clifford, but unfortunately he has no recollection of her after his terrible antiques accident involving a beech veneer button-back banquette. He now has no memory of his life before that but she's still pining after him putting a ring on her finger."

As for Miss Babs, "well, she's desperate but in a very different way," says Kathryn. "She's after any man she can get her mitts on in Manchesterford, until she sets her sights on Tony from Credit Cronies. Tony's been on the Fatkins Diet, so he's chiselled and lean and he definitely doesn't eat macaroons, so she's desperately trying to get him to fall in love with her and run away to a little hideaway like Cheltenham. He's only after the money but that doesn't stop her trying."

All this desperation would suggest there is room for pathos in Acorn Antiques, but Kathryn says: "There are moments of pathos...but not a lot. There are glimpses, and really poignant moments within the story too, but the show is an out and out comedy."

What stands out in Victoria Wood's writing, Kelly? "It's Victoria's use of language. We've all commented on how clever it is, how it builds the comedy partly through the use of repetition," she says.

"Bizarrely, it's the realism of the writing that you notice amid all the humour," says Kathryn. "It's heightened reality but it's not too far-fetched, and it's beautifully lyrical."

York Musical Theatre Company present Acorn Antiques, The Musical at Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, October 18 to 22, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01904 501935 or at josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk