People Our Friend Victoria

I've never met or worked with anyone

that's remotely like Victoria.

I'd taken a book on pregnancy and I checked the symptoms - moody,

irrational, big bosoms.

I've been pregnant for 20 years, according to this.

I think she was pretty much a one-off.

Can you imagine having sex with Mrs Kennedy?

I bet she'd make you write it all up after and list your equipment.

That's the one thing about Victoria

is her warmth and kindness and funniness.

-So...

-So, how do we go about it?

I'm sorry, could you just move away? Your breath smells.

It's a gift. It's a gift.

She was born with it, I believe.

Has he got over the divorce?

I think so.

His wife got custody of the stereo and they sold the children.

She was just really, really funny.

Not just a funny woman, but just a funny person.

SHE COUGHS

Eurgh! It's all over the cauliflower.

She will go on being loved, I think, for generations.

It was actually Julie Walters who introduced me to Victoria.

Julie and I had just done a film together during which I confessed my

undying love for both Victoria and her sketch show, As Seen On TV.

The moment we met, we got on instantly.

She was an absolute joy to be with.

Sometimes we would just meet up to watch grannies

tottering around St Martin-in-the-Fields.

I never encountered someone with so many talents,

seemingly able to turn her hand to everything and anything.

So it's an honour to be asked to present this programme.

A celebration of the finest work of our friend Victoria.

Whenever we were together, we just had fun, every time.

But it was the characters she created that really made me smile.

So I want to take a look at Vic's take on people,

because whether they were Northern, Southern, posh, middle-class

or working class, Vic had a laugh with everyone.

I was just thinking about British people the other day.

I was thinking, there could never be a revolution in this country.

Like, if we'd had the Ceausescus,

there's no way we would have taken them out and executed them.

We'd have written funny letters to Points Of View about them.

LAUGHTER

It's just so odd in this country. We don't like to be comfortable.

We like to be miserable, don't we, in this country?

Give British people a nice green, flowery meadow to have a picnic in,

they won't. They'll drive past it for three hours on the motorway,

trying to get to a Julie's Pantry.

It's like car-boot sales.

Give British people a nice car, they won't drive around in it.

They'll stand next to it in the school playground in the rain,

trying to flog an old roller blind and a jigsaw out of the back.

LAUGHTER

Because we don't like to be happy, because we don't like it, do we?

Like, if there's a heaven, which I doubt, because I think

the people from hell have probably bought it for a time-share...

-LAUGHTER

-..but if...

APPLAUSE

If there's a heaven, you'd find people from all over the world

rejoicing and singing and praising God.

All the British people will be in a little huddle in a corner

by the wall, going, "I'm sorry, it's just not good enough.

"Where's St Peter? It looks nothing like the brochure..."

She could make fun of everyone equally.

And you still love her for it.

That was the thing, you never felt like, 'Oh, she's talking about me.

'She's making fun of me.'

She was making fun of everyone. She was making fun of us.

We were all sort of in it together, and it was...

It was just like... She made it inclusive rather than exclusive,

and it was really nice.

MUMBLES INCOMPREHENSIBLY

'Ello.

I'm looking for me friend.

LAUGHTER

Kimberley.

Have you seen her?

She's got right dangly earrings with sausages on them.

Only they're not in her ears.

SHE MOUTHS

We're having a great day out around town today.

We've done the lot. Tried shoes on, had salad.

It's our day off from the supermarket, you know?

Cheap Save. We both work there.

Kimberley chops meat.

I'm on pricing.

I... Mrs Gupta on our till...

She gets a red cabbage un-priced.

She goes, "Red cabbage, how much?!"

LAUGHTER

And I go, "Red cabbage, no idea!"

Quite a responsibility.

She's nice, Mrs Gupta.

She comes from... Oh, where is it? It's got a really funny name.

It's a right long way away.

Kidderminster. That's it.

It might seem really over the top, but actually, yeah,

there were people like that. So, and...

It wouldn't be funny if there wasn't a sort of grain of truth in it.

And... You always think, 'Oh, characters, they're too...'

you know, they're massively over the top, but actually there's...

People are much more weird in real life.

But you can't miss Kimberley because she's really, really tall.

She's usually got bits of ceiling stuck in her hair.

And she's got a right interesting hairdo,

because we had it done this morning, we went to this really trendy salon.

Kimberley had a spiral perm and a Mohican.

And I had my beret trimmed.

Then we went to this really great boutique,

we tried loads of things on,

but Kimberley is, like, really, really enormous,

so she had to buy the only thing that fitted.

It's not everybody that suits a cubicle.

She hasn't got it on now, though, she's left it.

She's having the doors taken up.

I feel like she jots down human experience

throughout her work and she's like one of those seaside...

you know the people who draw people down by the seaside?

And the sketch artist down by the seaside will take a little bit of

something from someone and they're able to work out exactly what it is

about you that's your defining feature.

I can remember when pants were pants.

You wore them for 20 years and you cut them down for pan scrubs.

Or quilts.

We used to make lovely quilts out of Celanese bloomers.

Every gusset a memory.

Not bras, though, they won't lie flat, you see.

We didn't wear bras until after the war round here.

We stayed in and polished the lino.

We weren't having hysterectomies every two minutes either,

like the girls these days. If something went wrong down below,

you kept your gob shut and turned up the wireless.

LAUGHTER

She was Northern and she traded on it, of course she did,

because she wrote what she knew,

and she wrote it with an insight that very few people had.

Anyway, so, I'm stretched out in my new swimming costume, right.

Cut up here, cut down here, keyhole.

And I'm boiling hot and the light's burning me eyes,

and me mam comes up and says, "Kelly-Marie Tunstall,

"will you switch that cooker off and get off that ironing board?"

LAUGHTER

-She didn't.

-She did. And we're having our tea, right.

Pommes Lyonnaise and spam nuggets... And she said,

"You better know, I'm running away with a nuclear physicist.

"And if you look behind the clock you'll find 15 quid

-"and a bag of oven chips."

-She didn't.

She did. And she said, "And when your dad tries to find them,

"tell him not to, because I'm changing my name,

"cutting my hair and laughing on the other side of my face."

-She didn't.

-She did. And she laughed like this...

I said, "I hope that's not hereditary,

"because it hurts your eyeballs."

She said, "Well, actually, you're adopted.

"You were left on my doorstep,

"wrapped in the business section of the Sunday Times."

-You weren't.

-I was. And it's right embarrassing when you're 14.

She loved watching people

and listening to them, and listening to their conversations.

She had a little book that she'd get out and if she...

So, you know, if she heard something that was...

She thought was hilarious, it would go down in the book, you know,

and often be used in some form or other.

Anyway, so, I says, "You can walk me home,

"but you're not pressing me up against the doorbell."

So he puts down his banana fritter, he says,

"Kelly-Marie Tunstall,

"just because I have tattoos and a hairy navel button

"does not mean I do not have the instincts of an English gentleman.

"Please believe me when I say I will be happy to escort you

"to your abode of residence, asking nothing in return

"but the chance of seeing you again."

-He didn't.

-No, he didn't.

LAUGHTER

He caught his bus and I had to pay for my own lychees.

She saw the best in people in her writing.

And she saw the things that appealed to her,

and they may have been horrible people, I don't know,

but she wrote the funny things down about them.

Vic was a great observer of people, always had been,

but she would be the first to laugh at herself and her Northern roots.

And although her humour was warm, it often came with a few barbs.

Sickening, bloody sickening.

-I beg your pardon.

-Southern parasites,

licking the fat of the land while the North lies dying.

Close the conservatory door, lad.

There's bones inside.

Nice tree.

-Are you from the North?

-Yeah.

I can tell. There's a pain behind the eyes.

A sob in the voice.

I never marched from Jarrow, but those men's feet ache in my heart.

What are you getting for Christmas?

What's any Northerner getting?

Misery. Hopelessness.

An empty selection box and a rotten orange.

She was having a good go at professional Northerners

who actually live in London but... But who trumpet their Northern-ness

loudly and vociferously and angrily.

And it was... I loved it when I recognised it straight away.

OK. I write plays.

But do you know what I write them for?

-The money?

-People.

The dockers, the railwaymen, the North.

I love it, I love it.

I feel passionately about it.

They're choking it to death and I'm saying, "Rage!

"Rage against the dying of the light!

"Because they're killing it.

"They're letting it die.

"My North."

Whereabouts do you live?

Chiswick.

LAUGHTER

Vic was a walking thesaurus.

She could pluck phrases out of the air and make them sound funny.

Even a single word sounded like a well-crafted joke in Vic's hands.

My favourite example of this is trolley.

Such a simple word, and yet it delivered so much comedy.

Oh, those figures sound very promising, Tim.

-How's Plymouth looking?

-Plymouth?

Either way, Alan, either way.

It's on hold. I feel, personally, Plymouth could be another Exeter.

-That's interesting.

-I'm very much keeping an ear to the ground with

-Plymouth.

-I think what the regional boys tend to forget...

-Tim.

-Alan.

Just coffee, thank you.

..yeah, the regional boys...

Yes, just coffee for me too, please.

Regional boys?

..is that we have to consider the Isle of Wight as well.

-Two coffees, yes?

-Coffees what?

-What?

-Have you seen it?

-Um...

-Have you seen it on the trolley?

Just two coffees, no sweet.

Just two coffees, no sweet?

That's it. What was I...

-The Isle of Wight.

-Have you seen it on the trolley?

-No.

-Yes, thank you.

-Is it a sorbet?

Just two coffees, thank you.

-Now, Plymouth.

-Can you point at it?

No, we don't want anything on the trolley.

Oh, anything on the trolley.

No, just take the trolley away, dear.

Thank you. And we'll just have coffee, thank you.

One of the sketches I love the most is the trolley sketch.

I think it's because what Vic does is highlight the clash of classes

so brilliantly. You've got the two pompous business types

who then have to deal with the lovely Northern waitress

who's only interested in her trolley.

I must give you the printout from Expo,

it came out pretty much as you predicted.

Yes, so I believe.

They're good casters, aren't they?

I've been right over to cutlery.

We have a lot to discuss.

We don't want any pudding.

You don't want any pudding?

-Right.

-But you're having a sweet.

Uh, no.

We just want the old cafe.

-Coffee.

-I'll handle this, Tim, thanks very much.

-Coffee?

-Coffee.

-Is it on the trolley?

-I asked you to take the trolley away.

-I did do.

-Then you brought it back.

Then I brought it back.

Now take it away.

-Take it away what?

-The trolley.

The trolley. Take it away, the trolley.

-And don't bring it back.

-What, the trolley?

Well, that sorted that out anyway, Alan.

Yes, well, just don't butt in next time, OK?

She did cover the spectrum of class and she...

And she was equal,

even-handed in terms of having a pop at everything and everybody.

But generally I think it was snobbery that she was finding,

even within those different class

strata, that she would find something that was...

Where the comedy would come out of just noting...

Often the very, very minute shift in somebody feeling superior

to another person.

By God.

If her bum were a bungalow, she'd never get a mortgage on it.

She's let it drop.

I'll say.

Never mind knickers, she needs a safety net.

She wants to do that Jane Fonda.

-That what?

-That exercise thing, nemobics.

What's that?

Our next door does it, we can hear it through the grate.

You have to clench those buttocks.

Do you?

She'll never get hers clenched.

It would take two big lads and a wheelbarrow.

I mean, that is really true to life, I know it's sort of...

Well, it's ridiculous, isn't it?

That they're sat there with their bikinis over their tops, but...

They do exist, those gossipy Northern women.

I know, because... Because I am one.

You were separated, aren't you?

Well, he's living in the loft.

He's got the lilo and the slow cooker. We don't speak.

Now that's the blue of our Margaret's shower curtain there.

-Where?

-Them varicose veins, there.

Our Margaret's coming off cap.

She says it's dangerous.

-No, it's the pill.

-Is it?

I'll have to pop her a note through.

Can you not phone?

No, doctor says I haven't to dial.

What's that scar on Mrs Critchley?

-Appendix?

-No.

That's where she has nodded off on her Dick Francis.

That's her from the flower shop, isn't it?

Her with the yellow flip-flops on.

Them are her feet, you tray cloth.

Now to my kind of people, the upper middle classes,

or the middle classes pretending to be posh.

Victoria took a regular swipe at us, but, because it was Victoria,

nobody ever minded.

How do you like it in the country?

-Oh, very much.

-You don't find it too quiet?

Oh, no. There's always something going on.

You see those big brown things outside the window?

-Trees?

-That's it. Well, round about April,

they all get those sort of green sort of leafy things on,

and then round about the end of October they all drop off.

-It's riveting.

-Lovely view.

Yes. And a few months ago... Um, what are they called, with the legs?

Cows? A cow came through a gap in the hedge there and walked along.

Really?

We were in fits.

Must be nice to be part of a community.

Oh, it is. Everyone's so friendly.

I cut my leg last month on a mantrap that someone had left.

It's a beautifully crafted piece of farm machinery.

If you ever get the chance, pop your leg in one. And I was just...

I was staggering along the road, bleeding fairly profusely,

and a tractor came by and I called out,

"Is this the way to the hospital?"

And he said, "No, it's in the other direction."

You know?

Don't you miss the theatre and films?

No, no, because, you see, we make our own amusement.

We have a big old wooden barrel in the living room,

and I like to sit and look at that.

Um... I've memorised the vitamins on the cornflakes packet.

Well, I'm sorry,

living in the country would drive me mad in about five minutes.

Yes, I said that when we first came.

But I was wrong.

It actually took about four days.

Vic was fantastic at creating authentic characters,

so some of her most celebrated monologues don't feature her at all.

They were written for some of her - how can I put this politely -

more affluent friends.

Good evening. My name's Kitty.

I could have married, I've given gallons of blood and I can't stomach

whelks, so that's me for you.

I don't know why I've been asked to interrupt your telly viewing like

this, but I'm apparently something of a celebrity since I walked the

Pennine Way in slingbacks in an attempt to publicise mental health.

They've asked me to talk about aspects of life in general.

Nuclear war, peg bags.

I wasn't going to come today, actually.

I'm not a fan of the modern railway system.

Wouldn't you object to paying £27.50 to walk the length and breadth

of a train with a sausage in a plastic box?

Anyway, they offered me a chopper from Cheadle, so here I am.

The brilliance of Kitty, that character who's...

Probably, I mean, where would you put her in the social echelon?

She's upper working-class, aspiring to lower middle-class.

The snobbery, and all of it brought together by the brilliant use of

language. The right word chosen in the right way with the right meter,

that's what Vic did so brilliantly is write so cleverly

and capture an appalling character, which is what Kitty is.

My maisonette backs onto a cake factory,

so I'm dusting my knick-knacks all the day long.

And I shall wait to see myself before I do any more.

Fortunately I've just had my TV mended.

Well, I say mended - a shifty looking youth in plimsolls

came and waggled my aerial and wolfed my Gipsy Creams,

but that's the comprehensive system for you.

I was in the cafeteria here and a woman sat down with a prune yoghurt.

And I speak as I find, so I said, "What's that terrible smell?"

-She said...

-LAUGHTER

She said, "It's Ma Griffe." I said, "Well, it wants washing."

I'm doing the costumes for the rummy club's production

of The Sound Of Music.

And Helen Murchison's second act dirndl is a week's work in itself.

She claims to be dieting,

but every time we have "doe, a deer, a female deer,"

there's a terrible whiff of pear drops.

Victoria made everybody want to do everything so well,

and Patricia used to go through hell to get them right.

She lost weight doing it, I can tell you that.

Every time she did one, she lost a pound through sheer angst.

The producer didn't cook, thank goodness.

She's a nice girl,

but when someone chain-smokes Capstan Full Strength

and wears a coalman's jerkin,

you're hardly tempted to sample their dumplings.

First day I met her, she said...

LAUGHTER

She said, "I'm a radical feminist lesbian."

I thought, "What would the Queen Mum do?"

So I just smiled and said, "We shall have fog by tea-time."

She said, "Are you intimidated by my sexual preferences?"

I said, "No, and I'm not too struck with your donkey jacket either."

LAUGHTER

Then it was, "What do you think of Marx?"

I said, "I think their pants have dropped off

"but you can't fault their broccoli."

And since we're looking at amplified suburban snobbery,

let's not forget everyone's favourite continuity announcer.

Hello. Now it's time for Birthday Parade.

Again. Peter and Katie Farnsworth are three today.

Their granny says, "Could they please have three Wallaby hops each

"from Wally Wallaby?"

Holly Louise Johnson is 11 on Friday.

Her mummy has sent me a photograph of Holly in the garden.

I think Mummy must be a little bit common, judging by the sun lounger.

"Can Holly Louise have 11 Wallaby hops?"

No, she can have three.

I'm an announcer, not Fatima Whitbread.

You know that that character was saying what she was really thinking,

and it's what every continuity announcer would say

if they could actually get away with it.

Here's one from working-class people about chip pans.

I will repeat this one later

in case some of you are out with your whippets.

If your chip pan catches fire,

it's not a good idea to whirl it round your head by the handle.

Smother it in a wet tea towel.

Or do what I do, have coleslaw.

I've never heard of coleslaw catching fire.

So it's not quite so dangerous.

And finally, don't sit too near the television screen.

Or I might poke you in the eye.

Oh, dear.

It was our researcher's birthday

and we all had a little bit of Asti Spumante.

But it was Acorn Antiques which really took the mick out of posh.

With my pal Celia Imrie in the rather snobbish role of Miss Babs.

As I say, it certainly sounds like a genuine Picasso, Martin,

but I would have to see it to be sure. Bye.

I think she used to think it was quite funny that

I was a bit, you know, posh.

I may feed you, Cousin Jerez, but I don't like you.

Let's cut the pleasantries, shall we?

Just why do you want to buy my shares?

You don't like antiques and you never have done.

True. But I do like motorway service stations.

-What do you mean?

-Look out!

-Of the window!

-There's some council workmen putting a sign up.

I can't quite... A new motorway?

To be built here, starting the 25th?

That's tomorrow. Why haven't I had a letter?

HE WHISTLES

Why are you whistling like that?

I know that tune. It's the one our postman always whistles.

Oh, I see. It wasn't a postman at all.

It was you!

She'd choose little things about you and put it in the sketches.

I mean, like, for some reason she was fascinated by my nostrils

and used to make me flare them at any given moment.

How's your new girlfriend, Derek?

-What was her name? Marie-Therese Francine Dubois?

-Yes, Miss.

She's gone back to the convent, Miss.

Oh, no.

And after all that trouble you went to to find her a pleated skirt.

-Did she leave a note?

-She left a novel.

But I don't think it's very commercial.

-Derek!

-Miss Babs!

I still think of you, Miss Babs.

Whenever I'm watching the show jumping or grilling a tomato.

The great thing is we had no idea what it was going to be like.

But I had an awful feeling that perhaps

she'd cast me as this really naff actress

because that was all she'd ever seen me do.

But of course it turned out to be joyous.

Just unplug the iron for me, could you?

-A pleasure.

-Only, don't touch it with your bare hand because...

HE GROANS UNCONVINCINGLY

Because it's faulty.

Whatever was that heart-rending scream?

It sounded as if somebody was being electrocuted.

-Look.

-Oh, my good God!

-Is he dead?

-Well, put it this way, Miss Berta,

I needn't have bothered rinsing out the extra mug.

No, Clifford will never touch your macaroons again.

What was that terrible noise?

It sounded like a tray of coffee being dropped on someone

who'd just been electrocuted.

He's dead!

SHE SOBS

Crying won't bring him back, Miss Babs.

No, that's true.

Why don't we all have a delicious mug of my home-made sherry

and a couple of sausage dumplings?

Yes, Mrs O, why don't we?

THEY LAUGH

There you have it. That was our friend Victoria.

And so, to play us out, here's one of her tunes.

It's a song about something that I can honestly say

I've never dreamt of doing.

# As a singer, life was hell I never did too well

# I was never asked to play the same place twice

# I was paid my final wage

# Then an agent came backstage

# And gave to me some brilliant advice

# Pretend to be Northern

# Just smile and act dense

# Just sing something Northern

# It doesn't have to make sense

# Make a list of Northern cliches

# And you can't go wrong

# Put in any order You've got a Northern song

# You... just... go...

# Tripe, clogs, going to the dogs

# Wigan, a Blackpool tram

# Brass band, butties in your hands

# Whippets and next door's mam

# Cloth cap, hankie full of snap

# Shawls and scabby knees

# Hot-pot, seven to a cot

# Headscarves and mushy peas

# I threw away my skin-tight suits

# And I brought some heavy boots

# And I wore a woolly shawl

# All nice and flowery

# I spend neet after neet

# Watching Coronation Street

# And studying the works of LS Lowry

# Now I'm fully Northern

# And it works a treat

# Spent half the year in Preston

# And the other in Crete

# I'm buying a bungalow in Weybridge before too long

# Once I've made enough brass from my Northern song

# I just go rag man Eating out the pan

# Tanners and threepenny bits

# Pram wheels Good old Gracie Fields

# Braces, bugs and nits

# Fish, chips, cycle clips

# Gaslight and games in t' street

# Nutty slack, privy out the back

# Gradely aye and reet

# Fog, smog, sitting on the bog

# Cobbles in the morning mist

# Park Drive, dead at 45

# From a back street abortionist. # It's terrible.

SHE HUMS

APPLAUSE

-Thought of any jokes for this sketch yet?

-Nope.