Victoria Wood Best Of British

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# Freda and Barry sat one night

# The sky was clear The stars were bright

# The wind was soft The moon was up

# Freda drained her cocoa cup

# She licked her lips She felt sublime

# She switched off Gardeners' Question Time

# Barry cringed in fear and dread

# As Freda grabbed his tie and said

# "Let's do it, let's do it Do me while the mood is right

# "I'm feeling appealing I've really got an appetite

# "I'm on fire with desire

# "I could handle half the tenors in a male-voice choir..." #

This woman is a genius. If I know she's on, I always watch... Me and thousands of others.

# This fashion for passion Turns us into nervous wrecks

# No derision - my decision -

# I'd rather watch The Spinners on the television - I can't do it I can't do it tonight. #

Victoria Wood just makes me laugh. I've been to see her four times.

You come away so happy cos you've laughed so much.

# This folly is jolly Bend me over backwards on my hostess trolley

# let's do it Let's do it tonight

# I can't do it, I can't do it

# My heavy-breathing days are gone... #

Victoria's a SET of breakthroughs, a D-Day army landing.

At the heart of it are her powers of observation.

She's who you'd least like to have behind you in the supermarket queue.

She'd be noticing everything in your trolley and reading your character.

She's a terrific social observer.

-Hi!

-Hi!

Victoria Wood is Britain's most versatile entertainer.

The only comedian to sellout 15 nights in a row at the Albert Hall,

she's won acclaim as a musician, actress and playwright. And she writes all her own material.

This month she's in her first sitcom - set in a factory canteen - called Dinner Ladies.

-The women are the central characters?

-Five women and two men.

-But the humour's often very "female",

and the men are mystified alongside.

'Did you see that film on Sunday?'

-On Sky?

-No, real telly. Dirk Bogarde.

On Sky the film was about this woman whose husband died in this avalanche.

She finds his sperm in the freezer - gets pregnant with a turkey baster.

LAUGHTER ON TV CLIP

She's been distraught cos they'd had no children... Should've cleaned her freezer sooner.

Now, it's set in the north, >

-absolutely the home of your humour.

-Mmm.

-But you're now a southerner.

-You've...

-I'M not a southerner.

-You ARE. You've lived here seven years.

I know! You can live ANYWHERE. I carry my heart with me wherever I go. I carry my LANGUAGE with me.

'Do you? Or do you have to keep going back to refresh your ear?'

-'No, I don't. Cos I talk like that meself.'

-SHE LAUGHS

Victoria was born in Lancashire in 1953,

and spent most of her childhood

in a house on a hill near Ramsbottom.

A solitary child, she was quietly determined from an early age.

'I thought about becoming famous.

'That was the first thing I thought. I think I was about four then.'

-Got any jokes for this sketch yet?

-Nope.

'I suppose I was about...12

'when I thought about singing songs or telling jokes or something.'

I hadn't articulated it as wanting to be a stand-up comic - more as wanting to be a comic actress

in films or on the stage. At home I was working at the piano and writing funny lyrics.

I WAS edging that way and didn't know.

By the time I was 17, I remember saying to my friend Lesley, "I want to be a one-woman entertainer."

But I didn't know how you did it.

By the time Victoria had made up her mind she wanted to get into show biz, she was in the sixth form

at Bury Grammar School for Girls. Her humour had made her popular amongst her classmates -

but not, sadly, with her teachers.

A teacher's nightmare. She didn't apply herself if she wasn't interested.

Frustrating for THEM, I see now, cos she was a bright kid,

and wouldn't really try. She'd hide away in the music practice room,

play piano and sing and while away the time rather than doing her homework.

Having been clever at junior school, I went to grammar school and EVERYBODY was clever.

Instead of saying, "I'll be MORE clever", I just sunk underneath. "I won't compete, won't do homework.

"I won't wear clean shirts or wash my hair..." Just SANK below the surface.

I wouldn't be an adolescent again if you bumped me pocket money up to 3/6d! You're going along happily...

10, 11... Suddenly the dial inside clicks

from "fun" to "grease". Everyone at school had really greasy hair.

Made sealskin look dry and unmanageable.

At the age of 15, Victoria stumbled across a youth theatre group

that had taken over the top floor of a junior school in Rochdale.

"The sun came out for me the moment I walked through the door," she commented years later.

It wasn't just like an amateur dramatic society.

It was a big, empty school with a big, empty space where people were creative.

It didn't MATTER if you had spots or you were fat, 15 or 45. There were lots of people doing things.

Bring a play - somebody would read it. You could do lighting. ANYTHING.

When she first saw it, she was quiet.

But when she became involved in activities, that quietness went, and flair and energy were soon apparent.

She was very quick-witted, and could pun and use language well.

The stuff she was improvising had the acute observation of life you see now.

While others had faith in her abilities, Victoria herself was totally lacking in self-confidence.

Her feeling of inadequacy increased when she left school in 1971

to study drama at Birmingham University.

"I partly want to go for the education - and also for the social life. Just the words 'on campus',

"they have such an exciting sound."

'I didn't have any O levels so I really was fortunate in getting any sort of offer from any university.'

Some of it was really good. And it was nice to be in a bunch of people.

But it played to my own insecurity,

my feeling that I wasn't as good as everybody else, that I wasn't as good-looking and I wasn't as clever.

-Your zip's undone!

-Oh!

That settles it. Back on the old diet.

'I ducked out completely. I didn't go to lectures or do any work...'

-You're not really fat to me.

-Oh! My hero!

'I went and I wrote plays, or found pianos and played - all the time.'

I started to make little inroads, I suppose.

At 21, still a student, Victoria won a place on the ITV talent show New Faces -

then at the height of its success.

# There's a tin in the office

# Cupboard

# Labelled "Lorraine"

# Because I've gone and got engaged

# Again. #

She got through to the all-winner's final, but failed connect with the public in the same way

as Marti Caine - or a 16-year-old impressionist called Lenny Henry -

and her career was slow to take off.

# I ought to get thin for the wedding... #

The show used to get lots of calls. There was very little comment about her - although she'd won the show.

And we'd had no calls from any agent.

Only one person - a guy I happened to know -

said he liked her. I said, "Well, talk to her." They talked, and they got together, but it didn't work out.

No-one knew where to put her. You couldn't give her a stand-up show,

she didn't seem like an actress, you couldn't cast her. They knew she had talent. Harnessing it was a problem.

Somebody said, "You'll never work. You are sophisticated cabaret, and there IS no sophisticated cabaret.

"You'll never get to play a big audience." I thought, "I WILL."

# We used to do things before sex was a habit

# Send anonymous letters to next-door's pet rabbit... #

Being a regular guest on That's Life, the biggest show on British TV,

kept Victoria in the public eye, though her fee was so low she had to go on drawing the dole.

More important in the long-term was her first meeting

with the man who would become her personal and professional partner -

comedy magician Geoffrey Durham - The Great Suprendo.

I say the magic words - piff puff poof...and there is a real...

sugar lump.

Just out of That's Life, I went to visit a friend in Leicester who was in a theatre company with Geoffrey.

"We need a piano player for two weeks for this cowboy show in Southampton. D'you want it?"

"Yeah!" Cos it was 20 quid a week.

And that was when we met...

And we sort of got together then...

And from that moment on...we've BEEN together. And that was 1976.

After the success on New faces she did have a period in the doldrums.

Things got going when she met Geoffrey Durham.

I think, without him, it's possible she wouldn't have such a big career. She'd be famous and successful.

But his contribution shouldn't be underestimated.

MUSIC: "Happy Days Are Here Again"

That was a fantastic stroke of luck, to meet him. I was only 23.

I'd had relationships, but I wasn't IN one at that time.

I couldn't have met a better person for me. I could work stuff out with him. He came to all my first jobs.

He'd iron my costume. I drove for him when he was being The Great Suprendo. We did it together.

The road to success wasn't easy. In the late '70s Victoria and Geoffrey started to perform together.

But there were few outlets then for acts like theirs.

Things didn't improve when they took the somewhat eccentric decision to base themselves

in the seaside resort of Morecambe.

We do have...strange mental defects, Geoff and I!

And that was one of aberrations that we had.

What we should've done was gone to London to pursue our grand careers in variety before it finally died.

But he had a job with the Duke's Playhouse, doing a summer season in Morecambe. We went for the summer.

Then we just got a flat. It was cos I'd seen an Alan Bennett play about Morecambe. "Be funny to live there."

It's NOT funny to live somewhere just cos you've seen it on TV! It was MAD. But I don't regret it.

The first sign of real improvement in Victoria's fortunes came in 1978.

She was asked to write and perform some topical songs for a theatrical revue, In At The Death,

to open at the Bush Theatre, West London.

Thanks to That's Life, writing songs to order was now seen as Victoria's speciality.

She was keen to demonstrate she was capable of more. She soon got a chance.

It was too short, this revue, and they needed another sketch writing.

And in the lunch hour, Victoria -

who'd only been hired to write songs, nothing to do with sketches -

wrote a sketch and asked for it to be considered.

And it was a very good sketch indeed.

The sketch was incorporated into the show.

Victoria was allowed to appear with two more experienced actresses.

One was a fellow-northerner, Julie Walters,

with whom she established an instant rapport.

We hit it off straight away. Doing her play was the FUNNIEST thing. I thought, "This is heaven!"

It was "Sex". It brought the house down every night. Incredibly funny.

It just made me roar with laughter. It was heaven to play.

I can only remember... Julie's the librarian who thinks she's pregnant.

I'm a busybody. Alison Fiske comes in, New Age hippy, and says, "Where are you in the menstrual cycle?"

She says, "Taurus..." I thought it was quite a good joke!

I can't remember more, but it was recognisably my sort of jokes. It was so wonderful to hear them.

Victoria's sketch and the songs that accompanied it went down very well,

and got her a commission to write her first full-length play.

David Leland was doing a new season at The Crucible. "Why not write a play for me?" he said casually,

I equally casually said, "Why not?" I went back to my flat in Morecambe.

I'd write it at night and Geoffrey would type it, slowly, with lots of swearing, next day.

Took three weeks. Fantastic success.

# Julie, time is moving on... #

After long stage runs in Sheffield and London, Talent made it onto TV.

The story of two young women trying to survive in the shark-infested waters of provincial show biz,

the play offered viewers an early glimpse of Victoria's distinctive comic style

and confirmed the strength of her partnership with Julie Walters.

'Were you waiting ages for me?'

I was stroking my goldfish and forgot I still had my watch on.

Then I had that funny bus conductor.

Nice body, but cross eyes. Always pretends he won't let me off the bus.

-I

-never have any trouble with him.

-God, I'm nervous!

Talent was brilliant. I was in sixth form at the time,

and I was thinking about whether to do drama at poly or be a secretary.

But I thought Talent was so funny and I loved them both in it

and it was then that I thought, yeah, I WOULD do drama.

I'm shaking! I haven't been so nervous since I was the Virgin Mary!

-That's going back a bit!

-You're not kidding!

Victoria was grateful for the professional boost Talent gave her

but was uncomfortable with some of the publicity she began to attract.

It upset me if they said I was fat. I felt they shouldn't mention it.

I felt it wasn't relevant but, of course, it's a British obsession.

I was patronised either for being fat, being a woman or being a northerner.

"You've come from Morecambe?! What time did you get up at?" Shut up!

I was living in a world of mad southerners.

# Pretend to be northern Just smile like this... #

Wood And Walters, the quirky sketch show that was the next milestone along Victoria's road to fame,

was a deliberate attempt to prolong the double act with Julie Walters.

# You just go "Tripe, clogs, going to the dogs

# "Brass bands, butties in yer hands Whippets and next door's mam!" #

The critics were kind to the show but it had a few problems,

including a deeply unsuitable studio audience.

Mrs Merton has an audience of old ladies - fantastic for HER, but for US, that was dire!

They'd say, "We missed Brideshead for this!"

And "What's a boutique?" we heard one day in the audience!

-Hi, chaps.

-Evening.

-Welcome to the comedy show with a difference.

-It's upbeat.

-Zany.

-It doesn't get laughs.

'We used to get in a warm-up man,'

and he'd try to whip them up and they'd all sit there, looking up...

Eventually, he took his trousers down and showed them his bottom!

No response. So we thought, "No. No, we haven't got a chance!"

When Wood And Walters came to an end after just one series,

Victoria decided to concentrate on her career as a live solo performer.

With traditional variety in long-term decline and live comedy starting to boom,

she decided to down-play the musical side of her act and become a fully-fledged stand-up comedian -

a change of course that entailed a change of image.

I remember quite a lot of sort of agonising about what you wear and she put on this tweed jacket.

It looked OK, except it didn't quite look comedianish. So she said, "What do I do now?"

And one of us said, "Why not wear a tie with the jacket?"

And for ages she became identified with jackets and tie.

I used to get a lot of lesbians dressing like me.

I had very short hair and a tie, and it was a very masculine look. Quite an in-fashion look then, too.

Anyway, I used to get enormous women coming back with cropped heads and ties. Scary!

Ladies and gentlemen, Victoria Wood! APPLAUSE

'I was probably giving off an androgynous signal,

'cos it wasn't a look that said, "I'm a sexy woman," or, "I'm a butch woman."

'It was saying, "Whatever I am, just take it. Don't analyse it." '

Thanks for coming. Cos you could've stayed at home and had a cosy domestic evening, eh? Rowing!

"Daphne, why's your Dutch cap on the draining board?!"

Audiences were small at first for Victoria's live shows.

Even her closest friends wondered if she had taken a wrong turn,

but she was always sure she'd chosen the right path.

'Being a comedian takes a long time. I was devoted to learning the job.'

Julie was doing Educating Rita and being nominated for Oscars

and I was playing Southport Theatre to 250 people.

I suppose I WAS jealous, but basically I was dedicated to learning that job.

Terrible things, bras. There was a test in a magazine to see if you needed one or not. The test was:

-if you could hold a pencil under...

-LAUGHTER

..SHE knows what I mean!

It was depressing for me! I could hold a small branch of WH Smith under mine!

After two years of live performances,

Victoria returned to television to make her first series for the BBC -

a sketch show that won instant acclaim.

I was just really up for doing more TV. You know, I'd done Wood And Walters in 1980,

so it was four years on and I'd been going round the theatres and had loads of ideas and energy.

I'd write sketches on filing cards and arrange a series that went, "Song, quickie, sketch..."

We'd like to apologise to viewers in the north.

It must be awful for them. LAUGHTER

Her writing has a marvellous sense of economy and structure.

For me, it all comes alive when it's acted out by, say, her and Julie.

-She wants to do that Jane Fonda.

-What?

-That exercise thing - nemobics.

-What's that?

-Her next door does it. You can hear her through t'grate. You have to clench those buttocks.

-Do you?

SHE'LL never get HERS clenched! It'd take two big lads and a wheelbarrow!

I loved Kitty - that was Patricia Routledge.

'That was a brilliant character.'

First day I met her, she said...

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

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

So I just smiled and said, "We shall have fun by tea time!" LAUGHTER

And I remember when I was at poly when I was doing drama, I used to learn those off by heart,

learn those Kitty things off by heart, and then do them for my mum!

AS Seen On TV was the perfect showcase

for Victoria's unique brand of observational humour. It was jam-packed with memorable sketches,

the spoof soap opera Acorn Antiques being most people's favourite.

It certainly sounds like a genuine Picasso, Martin, but I'd have to see it to be sure.

She's not selfish with her writing. She shares it out. Acorn Antiques was a fantastic ensemble piece.

'I think there was a lot of Crossroads in it.'

I have something to tell you, Babs.

Shall I go? No, stay.

And please come back, Mrs O.

What I have to say concerns everybody.

I was very proud of Acorn Antiques cos nobody but me could see...

I said, "Just wait. I KNOW this'll be funny."

The fact is, Mrs O, my life seems completely grey, bleak and pointless.

Well, that's God's way of getting you to enjoy Gardeners' World.

HYSTERICAL LAUGHTER

You see, things can't be all that bad!

Bloody Nora!

Acorn Antiques featured three of Victoria's regular collaborators - Julie Walters as Mrs Overall,

Duncan Preston as Mr Clifford, and Celia Imrie as Miss Babs.

Don't say any more, Mrs O. The baby alarm was on. We heard the whole darn thing!

One of my favourite bits, I suppose,

was when Acorn Antiques was turned into a health farm for no reason.

It was never referred to, but we all wore headbands and sweatshirts

and Mrs Overall arrived in a lime-green leotard.

Victoria came in, before we actually got to that scene when she comes in in it...

and she came in and she nearly died laughing!

I'd seen the leotard hung up in the wardrobe,

but when Julie came in, her crotch all concertinaed and her headband...

I couldn't speak! I had to be carried out the studio.

Here we are!

A nice tray of decaffeinated coffee, low-fat milk and sugar-free sugar.

-Goodness, how healthy!

-I enjoyed myself!

-How was aerobics?

I enjoyed myself...! Correct footwear,

a supportive brassiere to prevent chafing

-and plenty of attention from a qualified instructor.

-Sounds ideal!

Best light entertainment performance, Clive?

CLIVE: I'm glad to say the winner is Victoria Wood!

The British Academy Award she won for the series was confirmation that Victoria was now a star.

At 32, with 11 years as a professional performer behind her,

she'd finally joined the entertainment elite.

Um... I only do one performance, so it's nice to get a prize for it. Thank you very much.

The BBC were keen for As Seen On TV to run and run, but Victoria had other plans.

After two series and a Christmas special, she killed the show off

and switched channels to ITV, for whom she made this one-off spectacular.

Ladies and gentlemen, Victoria Wood!

She gave an hour-long solo performance in front of an audience sprinkled with famous faces.

Welcome to London Weekend TV. This is Studio 1, where Michael Aspel interviewed Elizabeth Taylor.

There's still a pool of nervous sweat back there!

Don't know why she was so worried about meeting him!

..For some reason, that night,

in that studio, with that audience, there was a sort of a spark.

She went through the whole thing without a single fluff...without a recording break of any kind.

It was much more nerve-racking cos you could see all their faces.

Seeing a load of old newsreaders when you're telling jokes is not the best ambience for me.

You ask for celebrities and you only get desperate people who'll go anywhere

if a Ford Granada will take them to the studio!

We've not done bad. Who have we got? Some friends of Wincey Willis? And some people from Guildford!

They're up in the balcony. We don't show them cos they're not famous!

I enjoyed it, but my legs were hurting cos I was pregnant and I was stood up all the way through.

The pregnancy prompted Victoria and Geoffrey to look at how they were running their lives.

By the end of the '80s they decided to leave the Lancashire village and move south to London.

I could feel, on a very basic level,

that I should not live in that isolated way.

I was brought up in a funny house on a hill with nobody around,

then I recreated those circumstances when I got married.

But then I wanted to join the human race and that's what I did.

For the baby's sake, we wanted to live a normal life,

so she wouldn't be the only person with famous parents.

In 1992, Victoria, Geoffrey and their two children

moved to a leafy part of North London where they have lived since.

Big city life seems to suit Victoria.

Many of her friends have noticed quite a change in her personality.

Every time I see her, she's happier.

She's at one with who she is, where she is in the business, what she's doing with her family...

I'm not saying she's got a perfect life - nobody has! But she's...

She's happy with herself - I think that's the key to it.

I think she had...

probably a problematical childhood in a way,

which honed her sense of... her observation.

And she's one of those people who can...

..reason things out. "I am like this because..."

But she's just now a terrifically... rounded human being.

And I don't mean in a physical sense!

When we met...she was

probably the shyest person I ever met in my life.

Um, and she still is fairly shy, I think.

But she's become...very, very adept and skilled at handling it.

She used to think everyone was looking at her and that worried her.

Now everybody IS looking at her and it's ceased to worry her

because she's now doing the job she always wanted to do.

-In 1994, Victoria added a new item to her long list of achievements

by writing and starring in her first TV movie -

the very accomplished Pat And Margaret.

That's it! Thank you!

Pat And Margaret had a very chequered history

because it was written for a TV company who wanted to put it out for cinema release.

-The coach is outside!

-I'm waiting for chips.

-A TV show to get to and she's waiting for chips!

And this TV company suddenly said, "We hate it. It's no good at all. It won't work. We're not doing it."

When it WAS successful and people REALLY liked it,

it was wonderful! One in the eye for the people who turned it down!

< This is your magic moment...

< Margaret Mottishead!

Pat and Margaret told the comical yet moving story of two sisters -

Motorway waitress, Margaret Mottishead, played by Victoria herself,

and megastar Patricia Bedford, played by Julie Walters -

who are reunited by the host of a fictional TV show, after living very different lives for 20 years.

< Come and meet your sister, Patricia Bedford!

'Pat And Margaret I just absolutely loved.'

A lot of people would've given themselves a fully-formed character,

and the best lines, and made the other parts paper-thin.

But every single character in this film is really well thought-up.

The dazzling thing was that I could see the two sides of Victoria.

Julie was "the star" Victoria, Victoria was "Victoria" Victoria.

It was an extraordinary thing to make humour out of, the actual split in the personality.

I drew from my own experience of becoming famous.

I don't love being famous but I enjoy a lot of what it brings.

I was determined to be famous from a very early age.

And I also have that very... sort of blunt side that doesn't take any notice of it at all.

'I was interested in that clash.'

Press the Chanel and the Saint Laurent immediately, compri-hende?

Bring them back the second the work's completed. As an icon, I'm very vulnerable.

'She was such a bitch, my character. It allowed you to be this awful, awful cow of a person.

'I just loved it.'

Some squeezed organic grape juice, skinless chicken on granary - no animal fat - and a herb tea.

And it said so much about the business!

About the falseness of the business and the mirage that people chase.

The fame thing. It just said so much about all of that...

And I had GREAT speeches in it!

I just... Y'know - just... People would KILL for those speeches.

I'm Valerie, Lady Charlson.

I'm Knightsbridge.

I'm grooming. I'm camisoles!

I can't have a relative with a Lancashire accent and a perm to trick or treat in!

-Yes, but I don't think...

-It looks wrong!

It's not ME.

Oh...! Come early - help me get rid of her

BEFORE the press call.

Another who relished her part in the film was Dame Thora Hird.

She was brilliantly cast -

the mean-spirited mother of Margaret Mottishead's boyfriend Jim - Duncan Preston.

DAME THORA: Often enough, in a play, there's one line you KNOW people will remember.

I'm dusting the front gate when he comes with Margaret, and Mother says something,

and he says, "You can shut up. We've made love anyway." She stops dusting and says...

A sex life? YOU'VE had a sex life?!

Where have you had it? Your bed.

Not on the eiderdown?!

For AGES, I'd pass workmen digging the road who'd shout, "Now, Thora!

"Not on my eiderdown!" Or, "I've never been on your eiderdown!"

It shows they listened to the play AND what truthful scripts she writes.

She's one alone in this country.

I really mean that with my heart.

A bit of an icon. I've worked with an icon!

# Vic-to-ria

# Victoria... #

Some people, perhaps, at the beginning - cos she broke ground as a woman -

thought she'd only appeal to women. But that's not true at all. I mean...

It's EVERYWHERE she appeals to. I think it's a wonderful achievement.

# Victoria

# Victoria... #

She's really saying in what she does that brains are what finally count.

I'd add, "Brains are what finally make you beautiful." And she IS,

when that marvellous creativity of hers is sparking. She's riveting.

# ..I can't do it I must refuse to get undressed

# I feel silly, it's too chilly to go without me thermal vest

# Don't choose me, don't use me My mother sent a note to say you must excuse me

# I can't do it I can't do it tonight

# Let's do it, let's do it I really absolutely must

# Won't exempt you, wanna tempt you Want to drive you mad with lust

# No cautions, just contortions Smear an avocado on me lower portions

# Let's do it Let's do it toni-i-ight

# I can't do it, I can't do it It's really not my cup of tea

# I'm harassed, embarrassed I wish you hadn't picked on me

# No barter, non-starter I feel about as sensuous as Jimmy Carter

# I can't do it I can't do it tonight

# Let's do it, let's do it I really want to run amok

# Let's wiggle, let's jiggle Let's really make the rafters rock

# Be mighty, be flighty

# Come and melt the buttons on me flameproof nightie Let's do it, let's do it toni-ight

# Let's do it, let's do it I really want to rant and rave

# Let's go cos I know Just how I want you to behave

# Not meekly, not bleakly Beat me on the bottom with the Woman's Weekly

# But let's do it Let's do it toni-i-ight... #

Subtitles by L Brooks, E Kane BBC Scotland - 1998