Nothing written and directed by the mighty Victoria Wood is going to be without merit. And when the topic is talent contests — as pivotal to national life as football, frothy coffee and starting sentences with the words “In the current economic climate . . .” — you hope for a humdinger. After all, she first made her name with a turn on New Faces, the Britain’s Got Talent of the Seventies.

Alas, this rejigged revival of the Lancastrian comic’s breakthrough play, which was first performed in 1978 at the Sheffield Crucible, is one for devotees only. Its mix of comedy, songs and domestic disappointments has more than its share of beautifully pithy lines, all in Wood’s distinctive voice: “You’ve never looked at your boobs?” says Leanne Rowe’s incredulous Julie to Suzie Toase, as her frumpy friend Maureen. “What do you do when there’s nothing on telly?”

But as this unhappy pair dawdle backstage at a tacky Manchester nightclub, waiting for the big break for Julie that we know won’t come, you can’t help feeling that the paucity of plot would have mattered less 31 years ago. Back then, on stage and then on television, Wood played Maureen, Julie Walters played Julie, and gags about Larry Grayson, Stars on Sunday and Lena Zavaroni would have played to everyone, not just the over-40s.

The first 20 minutes are an engaging pastiche. Jeffrey Holland, Mark Curry and Eugene O’Hare sway together as the soft-soul trio Triple Velvet, looking pretty spanky in their blue velour suits and bouffant wigs, while Julie fantasises about the kind of success in which she would have her own show, co-starring Mike and Bernie Winters.

The era’s mix of gaudiness and poverty is evoked well, even if Wood has gone and added some anachronistic references to Eighties phenomena: Cagney and Lacey and Billy Joel’s Uptown Girl. Other additions work better, particularly a closing Sondheimy number, which suggests that believing that all your dreams come true is the mark of a true numbskull. It’s played well, too. Mark Hadfield adds delectable comic vim, whether dragging up as the club secretary or as the awkward magician Arthur Hall.

All the ingredients are here, but they’re not developed enough to sustain 90 minutes. Many of these ideas were more persuasively expressed in her television work. Talent has moments of flair and some nice songs, but its time has been and gone. Armchair Wood fans should wait for her long-awaited comedy comeback later this year, when she stars in her own BBC Christmas special.

Box office: 020-7907 7060, to Nov 14

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