LAST orders for Victoria Wood’s dinnerladies were served ten years ago, since when the genteel canteen sitcom has enjoyed gainful repeats in the TV hinterland of satellite channel nostalgia.

Director David Graham has “previous” with national treasure Victoria, having worked with her on such theatre shows as Talent, so when he decided to knock on Wood’s door for a new theatrical enterprise, she said “yes” to dinnerladies transferring to the stage.

In essence, Graham has adapted scripts from the second series, with final approval going to Victoria.

The most common question can be answered quickly. No, Wood, Thelma Barlow, Celia Imrie, Julie Walters, Maxine Peake and Duncan Preston are not in the touring cast, but York actor Andrew Dunn’s female-fixated canteen manager Tony Martin and Shoban Gulati’s deliciously dippy Anita do reprise their roles, leading from the front.

Anita, incidentally, claims to have been born in 1985, still making her only 24 despite the time lapse, although the play does make concessions to 2009 with mentions of Daniel Craig’s Bond and Lehman Brothers.

The characters are set in the aspic of their TV days, and so those stepping into the famous shoes look as they would have done in 1999. This is a good decision, adding to the notes of nostalgia while enabling the likes of Barrie Palmer’s lugubrious jobsworth janitor Stan, Liz Bagley’s demure Dolly, Jacqueline Clarke’s down-and-out fantasist Petula and Laura Shepherd’s scatty Bren to approximate the mannerisms, voices and looks of Preston, Barlow, Walters and Wood.

Impersonation would not be the right word; it is more a case of characterisation in the style of the originals, with sufficient room to breathe new life into these armchair favourites, rather merely re-heating old ingredients.

Graham’s plot progression follows the episodic TV format of a series of days, its structure given theatrical momentum after a slow start by the burgeoning yet tentative relationship of Tony and Bren, a love story in the great English tradition of will-they, won’t-they comedy.

That comedy is as undeniably old-fashioned as a canteen with so many staff (the credit crunch surely would have cut numbers), but the mood is as warm as buttered toast, and the fruity innuendo is far more to the fore than you recall. Best of all, Wood’s observational wit remains a joy: one sequence on the differences between Shakespeare, Dickins, Jane Austen and Catherine Cookson is an absolute pearl.

* dinnerladies, York Theatre Royal, serving until Saturday. Box office: 01904 623568.