Radio Times GUIDE TO TV COMEDY

Victoria Wood

Born on 19 May 1953 in Prestwich, Lancashire (but raised in Bury), Victoria Wood was studying drama and theatre arts at Birmingham University when, in 1974, she auditioned for the talent-spotting ATV series New Faces. Billed as someone who could 'write and sing her own music' she passed the audition, went on the show and won, but her victory amounted to little at this stage beyond slightly improved cabaret bookings and a place in a five week August 1975 ATV series for New Faces winners, The Summer Show. Odd TV spots came and went after this and Wood did not appear regularly in the medium until spring 1976 when the BBC1 consumer programme That's Life engaged her each week to sing a topical song at the piano. Still real success eluded her, and when Wood went out on tour at this time as support to Jasper Carrott few people laughed.

Victoria Wood's breakthrough came with the writing (dialogue and music) of her first play, when aged 24. Titled Talent, it was good enough to be noticed by Granada, which, under the Screenplay banner, put it on television on 5 August 1979, the eve of the long ITV industrial dispute. Set in a northern night-club, Talent depicted two young women: the sexy and ambitious Julie, an aspiring singer in the Shirley Bassey mould, and her more tentative overweight friend Maureen; Julie Walters played Julie and Wood herself was cast as Maureen, the two cementing a recently discovered friendship that went on to delight millions. Talent won Wood three prestigious writing awards, including those given by Plays and Players and Evening Standard, two more fine plays followed: Nearly A Happy Ending (Granada for ITV, 9 August 1981), a bittersweet but humorous tale of a relationship between Frances (Julie Walters) and Jim (Duncan Preston), in which Wood did not appear.

Before this third Granada drama, however, Wood and Walters had embarked upon a run of sketch shows with that title, a series that lead on to the classic 1985–86 BBC series As Seen On TV, which was so good as to make Victoria Wood a prized national treasure.

A Victoria Wood Script will always stand out from the crowd and be distinctively hers. She is a concise writer at once able to make her work meaningful by speaking the language of her viewer or listener. Her vocabulary conjures up real images of everyday life from an acutely British perspective. At the same time, though, her use of surrealistic imagery can send the mind reeling into uncharted waters. Whether or not she sees it this way, Victoria Wood is surely of the same mould as Alan Bennett, possessing an aural vision that can draw the humour out of everyday mundanity. She is a naturally witty woman with a gift for making people see the funny side of life. Moreover, she seems a genuinely pleasant person. Still only in her forties, we will, hopefully, be blessed with the pleasure of Victoria Wood's wit and wisdom for decades to come.

Victoria Wood was the subject of LWT/ITV's arts programme The South Bank Show on 15 September 1996.

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