This is getting silly now, how many more this year?
Victoria Wood RIP
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Musings on the byways of popular culture
Musings on the byways of popular culture
by 37 Comments
This is getting silly now, how many more this year?
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Thought she was brilliant. I am in shock after just seeing the news on the BBC.
Staggered to read this.
Awful news.
Frequently quoted in our house.
“Can you point at it?”
That’s Nigel Pargeter from the Archers!
Someone else who died too soon.
Remember folks, be careful with ladders.
Expanded fro my entry on the obituary thread as it has been decided, quite rightly, that she’s deserves her own:
Bloody hell – that’s far too young. What awful news. I used to sell books to her occasionally when I worked at Waterstone’s in Lancaster. She was always perfectly pleasant, but very keen not to draw attention (her then husband Geoffrey ‘The Great Suprendo’ Durham was far more outgoing in public.)
I once saw her in the local Sainsbury’s wearing sunglasses, presumably in an attempt to get her groceries without being recognised. The actual effect was to make everyone wonder who the person in shades was, then realise that it was Victoria Wood.
So sad. In her own quiet, humble way she was a feminist icon.
perfectly sums her up….a comic genius
What a rotten year this is.
Worth remembering for her more serious roles too, terrific as Eric Morecambe’s mother.
Agreed, she was fantastic in this. Really very sad news, genuinely shocked when I heard.
This is very sad news. So young. She leaves such a fine body of work including the hilarious Acorn Antiques, the brilliant TV specials, all the work she did with Julie Walters, and the dramas she wrote. I particularly liked Pat and Margaret, about the school dinner lady (Victoria) meeting up with her long-lost estranged actress sister (Julie).
Celebrity deaths quite often aren’t a surprise but this sure as hell was.
She was wonderful, on so many levels, not least her normality in the face of the ludicrous world of fame.
As mentioned in the OP, 2016 is just taking the piss now.
It’s looks a little dated now, but at the time this sketch used to have me in hysterics. Victoria Wood’s use of words and focus on the minute details of life always made me think of her in the same light as Alan Bennett. Sad news indeed today.
There are several things regularly said in my family, besides the obvious ones about soup, trolleys and macaroons for which the great Victoria is responsible. Eg.
“Them as chat never grow fat!”
“They were the Be- Atles”
“Go on then, you woolly article”
“Am lookin for me frennnd. Ave yer seen er?”
“Sections of intecost”
“I remember when pants WERE pants”
….and so on.
…..can we cut our losses now and just go straight to 2017?
Doboly bonafodo.
Just remembered another one:
“Pleased to meet is sorry to greet come Michaelmas”
Amazing effect on the Family Lexicon – all of the above present and correct in parents house while growing up (and often repeated when I visit).
Others include:
“Just fiddling with the Gilbert” (although that was Susie Blake’s continuity announcer, but probably written by VW)
“I wanted ‘oops. The make toast very interesting” (from documentary of Billy)
“We were banned from Cross Country running at my school for denting a viaduct”
“Red Cabbage … how much? Red Cabbage … No idea!”
Rarely does a day go by that we don’t quote one of her lines. This will continue.
This has actually made me feel sad.
The late Mrs Cakes and I went to see her live, when we lived near that London. We laughed until we were sore. For her encore she sat at the piano and solemnly addressed the audience:
“I’d like to dedicate this song to Stoke Mandeville Hospital, for everything they’ve done for my friend’s husband. Thanks to their dedicated hard work he’s now able to clean up, dress himself and cook simple meals.” … pause … “He’s not disabled, he’s just a prat.”
Mrs Cakes laughed all the way home.
I adored her.
I saw her at the Royal Albert Hall in 1996. 2 hours of songs and characters which I didn’t think could get better. Then she left the stage to come back for her first encore.
The curtain dropped to the floor as she bounced on as her manic Lancastrian aerobic instructor dressed in dayglo spandex. The place lifted. I’ve never known such a sustained roar and hoot of laughter from an audience. I was breathless.
Anyway, this is my favourite song of hers.
“I once went to one of those parties where everyone throws their car keys into the middle of the room. I don’t know who got my moped, but I drove that Peugeot for years.”
Brilliant.
Another shocked and saddened by the news.
I also saw her back in the mid 90’s. The first half was a very long shaggy dog story which incorporated a number of her monologue routines. After 50 minutes or more, we ended up back where we had begun – a wonderful piece of writing. It included the wonderful line about the Prime Minister’s wife: Norma Major “the sort of woman who has a separate J-cloth for the hot and cold taps”
She began the second half with the aerobic instructor routine. After 6 minutes of that, I just hurt. You just wanted her to go off and give you a rest to recover. She spent the rest of the half dressed in that padded leotard with a dressing gown wrapped round her – so much for star ego. That half was brilliant – the hurt from laughing never stopped. Not long after her second child, it was all about the indignities of giving birth. In the row in front of me was a lad of about 14 with his Mum and a female friend or sister. He wasn’t sure whether he should laugh and kept looking across at the two of them. He needn’t have bothered, they were almost on the floor wetting themselves.
For encores we had “I’m looking for my friend” and then a certain ballad of matrimonial love.
Still wonderfully vivid twenty years later.
I remember an interview where she talked about her writing. ‘Biscuit’ she said wasn’t funny; ‘custard cream’ was funny. And she was absolutely right.
I knew nothing of this until I saw this thread. Acorn Antiques, the continuity announcer, and Kitty are some of the finest comic writing ever written.
I’m speechless and sad.
Loved Victoria, and quite shocked by this news.
I’ll reign in my fatalistic, mindset temporarily to add my 2p-worth to the general disapproval of 2016 (at least on the celebrity death front).
There was something quintessentially English, and good about her that was inherently likeable.
” I hate black and white films. What if someone walked in and thought you were too poor to afford a colour television?”
The continuity announcer on As Seen On TV, of course. I loved that show. Sad news.
I’m afraid I never found her funny – and I don’t mean to be disrespectful: hear me out… but I thought two of her recent screenplays were brilliant: Eric & Ernie and Loving Miss Hatto.
With her eye for detail and exquisite turn of phrase I always thought of her, in the nicest possible way of course, as a council estate version of Alan Bennett
Alan Bennett had a significantly more working class background than than Victoria did JC. Still, coming from Sheffield I suppose you think everybody’s middle class.
Ho, ho.
I suppose I was thinking more of her commercial writing style than the lady herself Gary. While similar to Bennett’s with its minutely observed and brutally accurate depiction of the (Northern) human condition, Wood’s everywoman approach resonated with a much wider audience. So her work was able to cross over into sitcom land, something Bennett, with his Oxbridge roots, might be very sniffy about.
Yep, fair point. Vic loved her popular culture reference points more than AB did. She was an observer of telly as much as of life.
I love the dialogue in this:
Yes, that’s brilliant
Worth remembering that. in addition to the other dramas already mentioned, she also won a Bafta for Housewife, 49.
So, someone who was a successful stand-up comic, sketch and sit-com writer,comic and dramatic actor, and dramatist. Much loved, by many, but I suspect we underestimated her talents.
So many great sketches and songs. A genuine trailblazer in her own unassuming way. Her breadth and depth of talent is why she was able to create a unique space in the entertainment world that is now a permanent fixture. A lot has been made about how she helped female comedians to break through but I think that diminishes her significance. She helped comedians, writers and performers rethink what could occupy the world of light entertainment without then having to choose between becoming “alternative” or “mainstream”.
One of my favourites is from her ‘An Audience with…”. It’s the Hellmann’s Opinion Pollster:
She wasn’t underestimated round my parts. Me and The Light are well sad this morning. She was the best example of good natured comedy. Still remember my rather straight-laced old Mam laughing so hard at “Let’s do it” that a bit of milk stout came out of her nose.