Acorn Antiques

A lack of continuity is seen in distinct lapses where storylines are introduced and dropped between episodes and character development is forgotten.

The opening sequence was updated for the second series, with a reworking of the theme tune and shots of Miss Babs, one of the leading characters, driving to Acorn Antiques in the firm's van.

Perhaps the most comical element of Acorn Antiques were the missed cues, harking back to the days when Crossroads was recorded live.

References to other daytime television devices featured; after one episode a continuity announcer mentions an exhibition of costumes from the show touring several British towns, and after another episode a range of novelisations is mentioned (bearing such archetypical purple titles as A Waning Moon, and little resemblance to screened storylines).

Wood also created a spoof arts documentary about the show for her As Seen on TV special, in keeping with similar straight-faced "behind the scenes" shows produced about soap operas, which reveals the shambolic Acorn Antiques production, and interviews the self-obsessed fictional actors behind the fictional characters.

Overall as being an archetypal soap diva called Bo Beaumont (although in the series the fictional end titles credit Julie Walters as Mrs Overall).

In the final show of Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV a sketch was shown where the actors playing Mrs Overall and Mr Clifford are supposedly axed from the soap and Bo Beaumont (Walters) breezes out of the studio (in a parody of Noele Gordon's firing from Crossroads), complaining to the TV news crew outside "Does a faithful dog expect to be kicked?

As with the original TV series the musical is presented as derivative and amateurish; missed cues, chaotic choreography and jarring tone changes blight a production that parodies set pieces from its genre, notably Blood Brothers, Chicago and Les Miserables.

Richard and Thomas Ayre are listed as lighting operators, and Victoria Wood attended the opening night.