Summer 1978, I write a play with songs, Talent, which is put on at the Crucible Theatre Studio, Sheffield that autumn. It wins the Evening Standard Most Promising Playwright Award and I have to buy a frock and sit next to John Osborne.

Spring 1980, I write a play with even more songs, Good Fun, which is done at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield. Julie Walters is in the cast, playing a batty Avon lady, Betty.

From 1981 onwards, burdened by my Evening Standard award, I write quite a few stage plays, but I don’t think any of them are any good, and they just live in a filing cabinet, reproaching me with their hopelessness.

1999(ish), Trevor Nunn writes me a very encouraging letter and I think again about what I could write for the stage.

A Tuesday, 2000. I am sitting in a taxi when I have the idea to write a musical and base it on Acorn Antiques. My main feeling at the time is that it sounds good fun and will look good on a poster. I don’t want to be in it. At all.

I go and see Trevor Nunn at the National Theatre and tell him about my idea. He’s very enthusiastic and we make a tentative plan to put it on there the following Christmas.

I then have a hysterectomy, go on tour with my stand-up show, play the Albert Hall, realise I am a compulsive over-worker and write to Trevor to say I can’t write a musical just at the moment.

Autumn 2002, I start work on the music and by July 2003 the book and the songs are basically in place. Trevor comes to my house to listen to the songs. I am not in.

February 2004. We do a two week workshop in a rehearsal room in Kennington. This holds happy memories for me as it’s where we rehearsed dinnerladies. There is a brilliant café across the road where they do great egg and chips and the lady keeps a baseball bat under the counter in case anyone kicks up.

Amazingly, Julie, Celia and Duncan are all quite keen to do the workshop and we have a very happy fortnight. They are a resolutely unstarry bunch but if anybody does kick up we have the baseball bat to fall back on.

On the final afternoon we give a very rough performance to an invited audience of friends. With minimal staging we can’t of course do any scene changes so Trevor devises a solution whereby the audience turn their chairs round on cue and face in another direction. This is more stressful than the show and I am quite surprised no-one shatters an ankle.

Spring, Summer 2004. With Trevor’s help, and using what we learned from the workshop, I do lots of rewrites, add numbers, take numbers away, and we all fret constantly about which West End theatre we could get. We have a few we’re really keen on and the rest we’re quite scathing about. I get the fantastic news that Julie, Celia and Duncan will take their original parts for the first 16 weeks. To give Julie an easier week and more time with her family I offer to do two of her shows as Mrs Overall.

October 2004. We can’t have any of the theatres we want and the ones we were scathing about have now become utterly desirable. We can’t have any of them either.

November 2004. We are circling above a West End theatre waiting for what seems like a dying show to turn its toes up. It suddenly has an upturn at the box office and Acorn Antiques is homeless. I get this news in a clothes shop while I am still puce from a tap lesson so am unable to turn pale, but I feel pale. Producer Paul says he will call me when he has a plan B. He hasn’t got a plan B, so he doesn’t call. In a daze I buy a pair of socks and go home. Hours later, I notice they are cashmere and have cost £55.

The next morning I am lying on the sofa very depressed (about the socks as much as anything) and quite likely dribbling, when Paul calls me to say he and Philip are coming up to see me. I reckon this is the hard word; no theatre, no musical, no fun. I buy a cake from the petrol station and put the kettle on. I only put half the cake out on the table - I’m hedging my bets.

Paul and Philip eat the cake and say there is a chance we could go to the Theatre Royal Haymarket. I get out the other half of the cake.

I’m very happy. I stop minding about the socks.

It was in January 1984 that Acorn Antiques was first shown on BBC2 as part of the sketch show, As Seen On TV. It’s a big thrill for me to see Miss Babs, Miss Berta, Mr Clifford and dear Mrs Overall on stage at the Theatre Royal, singing, dancing, and possibly forgetting to come on with the tray, 20 years later.

Acorn Antiques ran for a critically acclaimed sell out season at The Theatre Royal Haymarket last year, and is now back, for a national tour – click here for tour dates.

December 2006. ACORN ANTIQUES RAN FOR A CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED SELL OUT SEASON IN LONDON LAST YEAR, AND I AM VERY PLEASED TO SAY IS NOW BACK FOR A NATIONAL TOUR WITH A BRAND NEW CAST – CLICK HERE FOR TOUR DATES AND DETAILS OF THE FANTASTIC NEW COMPANY.

Rehearsal Photographs – West End Cast