Lip Service, Withering Looks, York Theatre Royal, July 1 to 5.

No matter how often Lip Service put Withering Looks to bed, their Bronte satire keeps on rising like an insomniac.

Next week, Maggie Fox and Sue Ryding are back at York Theatre Royal, where they previously sent up the scribbling siblings of Haworth in October 1999. Even that visit was supposedly a short-lived return for an old favourite. "We're trying to keep it quiet. Just five dates," said Maggie at the time.

Yet Withering Looks refuses to wither. "It's back again by popular demand! We've done a few major tours of it around the country, but each time we put it away, thinking 'right, that's it', we get someone in somewhere like Taunton saying 'Can we have it?'.

"As soon as you say 'Yes, just a one-off', Bristol or wherever will ask for it and suddenly you have a tour again," says Maggie, who will be returning to her York roots next week.

"York Theatre Royal rang up to say 'We've only had two performances; can we have it again?'. Despite our longevity, we're constantly meeting new fans, so we find we have to do our back catalogue.

"Besides, the Brontes are always having another anniversary, or someone's written a controversial book about them or there's been a television show, so there's this constant interest." To prove the point, Good Company's production of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre opens in York at the Grand Opera on Tuesday, the same night Withering Looks begins at the Theatre Royal.

This week, Maggie and Sue are in the process of freshening up Withering Looks and its insight into the lives and works of the Bronte sisters ("well two of them, Anne's just pooped out for a cup of sugar").

"You put the show away for a while and then there's a renewed excitement as you can always add new things, subtle changes " says Maggie.

The show's long-running success has brought Lip Service the unexpected affection of the Bronte Society. "The Brontes were a very serious bunch, and we were always very frightened about what the Bronte Society would think of us, because we were being subversive, but they've now embraced us because of the show's success.

"We're now legit and get invited to events at Haworth as Bronte celebrities - and the Haworth Parsonage is such a fantastic place, so spooky," says Maggie.

Why have they found favour with the Bronte Society? "Because we look at the Brontes with such affection. What we're debunking is the way the English turn everything into theme-park culture, with all that merchandise and key rings. Just look at the Harry Potter spin-offs," says Maggie.

"It's that thing of reducing all your literary heroes down to a couple of lines so you don't need to read the books.

"But the good thing with Withering Looks is that we have found people have reached for their Bronte books after the show, having not read them for years, especially Wuthering Heights. Who knows, perhaps women will be seen diving into their handbags to bring out their Jane Eyre."

Lip Service are turning their attention to their next show, their first American spoof, satirising Louisa May Alcott's story of four sisters growing up in pre-Civil War America, Little Women.

"It's called Very Little Women... so it's a much smaller show. We're just wrangling over the casting at the moment; Sue thinks I shouldn't be in it," says the very tall Maggie. "We decided we wanted to look at the American Civil War and Gone With The Wind, and anything with an American accent in fact, because we're going to have a dialect coach on stage.

"We've never done American dialects before, so there'll be an awful lot of research... or maybe we'll just leave it to the performances and see what the dialect coach says."

A co-production with the Chester Gateway theatre - "it will be Chester's first time with us, so they've yet to learn what a pleasure it is working with two such very sensible women" - Little Women will be premiered next spring. In the Fred Pontin tradition of booking early, York Theatre Royal has already bagged the show for autumn 2004.

Lip Service, Withering Looks, York Theatre Royal, July 1 to 5. Tickets: £6.50 to £16.50 on 01904 623568.

Updated: 10:27 Friday, June 27, 2003