ANDREW Dunn has been there, Dunn that before, but the York actor is delighted to be returning to his best-known role, Tony the canteen manager in dinnerladies.

This time, ten years since the last episode of Victoria Wood’s BBC sitcom, he is taking to the stage in a two-hour play adapted from Wood’s scripts from the second series by director David Graham.

Why do it, Andrew? “It just came along at a good time for me in terms of I’d just finished Coronation Street [playing Roger Stiles for 18 months] and…what next?” he says, as bluntly truthful as ever.

“Besides, Victoria was pleased I said I was going to do it, and it’s work, isn’t it.”

Yet doesn’t the old saying insist “you should never go back”, even if the dinnerladies tour is bringing him home to York Theatre Royal from Tuesday?

“A lot of people wouldn’t see it as a career move, but with a wife and child and tax bills to pay…”

If that is the practical reasoning, a sense of excitement is evident, too.

“I hope it will have the same effect at the Theatre Royal as Brassed Off did,” says Andrew. “People know what the show is about, and hopefully they’ll come out for a good time in these hard times that we keep hearing about.”

The heavy-rotation repeats, especially on satellite TV, have led to dinnerladies retaining its place in people’s affections.

“Ten years is a long time, but people watch it over and over again, and they now think there were more episodes than there were – we did six in 1998 and ten in 1999 – and it seems to be more popular than it ever was,” says Andrew.

“People keep stopping me in the street, which seems bizarre, especially as I don’t get any money from the series now.”

Analysing the undimmed appeal of dinnerladies, he says: “The humour doesn’t date because it’s set in a work situation in one place. You’re not going into the outside world, so the format stays the same: they’re in a canteen.

“The main thing that has made it grow in popularity is Victoria’s scripts, but I remember that when it first came out, dinnerladies got mixed reviews. It was up against shows like The Royle Family, which had a new way of filming comedy.

“So dinnerladies was seen as an old-fashioned method of doing sitcom, done in front of a live audience with big cameras, whereas The Royle Family was filmed on a sofa with one camera and no laughter track.”

The old style of recording dinnerladies lends itself to the theatrical version too. “The format fits staging, doesn’t it, with a live audience,” says Andrew. “It’s half way to being a stage play anyway.”

The most obvious difference between the TV series and the play is the length of show: 28 minutes per episode and two hours’ traffic upon the stage. Andrew believes the lengthened format can benefit both Wood’s dialogue and storytelling.

“The thing that really struck me about Victoria’s scripts at the time was how much there was in them,” he says. “Each one, you could have made three episodes out of them because the jokes came so thick and fast.

“What I got from people was that there was so much information and comedy in it that they were missing loads of jokes, and it was only when they saw the repeats that they saw things they’d missed – and I guess that they’re still finding new things when watching it on Gold, because Victoria’s humour is so quick-fire.

“It was hard to fit it all into a formula of 28 minutes as you can’t just wait for the laughter to stop.”

Andrew admits to feeling strange going back to dinnerladies after a decade “because it doesn’t feel like ten years”, but he has enjoyed rediscovering Victoria’s scripts and being struck by one characteristic of her writing in particular.

“It’s surprising how quick my memories of it come back but the thing that has stood out is the sexual innuendo,” he notes. “As they were all women, apart from Tony and Stan, there was all this sexual banter… but low-key sexual banter.

“Because the show was 28 minutes a week, it didn’t really register how much innuendo there was, but now, in a two-hour play, it seems like Tony has turned into this sex fiend, which he probably always was, but it just never registered as much.”

Andrew will be joined in Graham’s cast by only one other member of the original cast, Shobna Gulati in the role of the slightly dippy Anita. The remainder will be unfamiliar names playing familiar parts.

“In a sense, it does feel like I’m the daddy of the pack, but those feelings should fade as the tour goes on,” he says.

“I hope the pressure is not on them too much to be like the performers in the TV series. Hopefully, people aren’t expecting impersonations because the script is good enough in itself. The strength of the new cast and the dialogue will overcome any doubts people may have.”

• Dinnerladies, York Theatre Royal, Tuesday to Saturday. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk