PETER Kay has had his garlic bread moment and in That Day We Sang, Victoria Wood taps into our love of all things nostalgic with prawn cocktails, steak and Black Forest gateau– her Berni Inn moment!

Both comedians, hailing from just a few miles from each other, have a knack of tapping into the public’s fascination with past times, although Wood, from Prestwich, was doing it while Bolton’s own Kay was still playing with his Scalextric.

That Day We Sang tells the tale of a group of Mancunian pupils, picked to perform Purcell’s Nympths and Shepherds with schools from across the region at a 1929 concert at the Free Trade Hall.

The children are then shown grown-up in 1969, including bourgeois Frank and Dorothy Brierley, think Alison Steadman in Abigail’s Party, insurance salesman Tubby Baker and spinster secretary, Enid.

Brought together by Granada Television for a documentary on the Free Trade Hall concert, the play lovingly includes several nods to days gone by as Frank and Dorothy take Tubby and Enid to their local Berni Inn, not for a night out as such, but more to show how ‘sophisticated’ they are.

Needless to say Tubby and Enid decline coffee with their hosts and head off to the Wimpy for chips and tea.

The scenes from the 1960s run alongside the ones from 40 years previous as the adult Tubby, Dean Andrews, Ashes to Ashes and Last Tango in Halifax, remembers his young self in a wonderful performance from William Haresceugh.

With youngsters picked from across the region to form the 1929 choir, That Day We Sang, while not quite a musical, does contain some wonderful comic songs. Well being written by a woman who wanted ‘spanking on the bottom with her Woman’s Weekly’ it was bound to wasn’t it?

And does love blossom between Tubby and Edna? Well you’ll just have to go along and see it.

That Day We Sang is at Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester until January 18.

Call 0161 833 9833 or e-mail box.office@royalexchange.co.uk

GARETH PARKER