The two series of Victoria Wood’s sitcom dinnerladies, shown on BBC1 from 1998-2000, enjoyed wide popularity.

Its fans no doubt supply the bulk of the audience for the stage version which has now been on tour for some months. Part of the enjoyment for them, I feel sure, is in seeing how well the actors are able to imitate the players who created the roles on the screen – very well indeed, presumably, in the case of Andrew Dunn and Sue Devaney who were the telly originals of catering boss Tony and the always-out-for-fun Jane, from the planning department of HWD Components.

At every performance there must be some though – and I was among them this week – greeting the show’s larger-than-life gallery of characters for the first time. Thanks to writer David Graham’s careful adaptation of Wood’s original scripts and more than usually detailed particulars in the programme (apologies to my neighbours in the stalls for all that first-half rustling), I found I soon got to know them well – too well, in the case of some of them.

Definitely in the category of canteen operatives from hell, for me, are good pals Dolly (Liz Bagley) and Jean (Stella Ross). The first is a socially ambitious snoot, with an irritating line in put-downs; the second proves to be truly horrid in adversity, after dumping by her husband, and even worse in her gloating after things look up with the arrival of a sexually athletic toyboy. Dolly ought properly to be (though isn’t) a kindred spirit for Petula (Tasmin Heatley), the awful mother, played by Julie Walters on TV, of the show’s heroine, the Wood character Bren. Loony Petula believes she lives in a world of celebrity whereas her home is a clapped-out caravan behind a service station.

Bren herself is superbly portrayed by Laura Sheppard whose uncanny similarity to Wood is apparent as soon as the curtain rises. The long-suffering Bren is too good to be true, of course (and, it has to be said, rather irritating in her constant self-deprecation). But who expects to find truth in a sitcom,where even the best – and dinnerladies appears to be in that category – offer only the briefest brush with reality?

This is is good fun, though, with some wonderful off-the-wall humour especially from Anita (Roya Amiri) who possesses a comically literal mind and an endearing ability to be wrong about almost everything.

Until Saturday. Tel: 01242 572573 (www.everymantheatre.org.uk). The show tours to the Wycombe Swan from June 7-12 (01494 512000, www.wycombeswan.co.uk).