# NINA SIMONE: My Baby Just Cares For Me
Hello.
She just made a lot of people laugh.
I'm looking for my friend.
For a lot of comedians, Victoria Wood
is just incredibly jaw dropping.
Have you seen it? 'Her talent was boundless.'
Have you seen it on the trolley?
And she had so much more to give.
She was one of Britain's best-loved entertainers.
There was nobody like her.
There was only one.
A woman who changed comedy.
(COUGHS) Urgh! It's on the cauliflower.
Sorry. 'She drew you in.'
You identified with what she was saying.
You recognised the people she was talking about.
Fell about laughing like this...
So much more than a comedian,
she was an award-winning actor...
Victoria Wood...
Ow!
..a song writer who created unforgettable musicals...
She was part of the British DNA.
..a star, who did everything with a style that was simply unique.
Off I go, then.
Inoffensive and yet quite naughty, when she wanted to be.
You just think, 'Gosh, what a special person.'
Are you from the North?
I don't know whether she had any idea of the love.
I hope she knew. I don't think she really knew.
I feel so lucky...
to have known her.
Tonight, we celebrate the life and work of the woman once voted
as the person we'd most like as our next-door neighbour -
Victoria Wood.
'Meeting Victoria completely changed my life.'
Yeah. She is very much missed.
London, SW7,
the legendary Royal Albert Hall,
one of the most famous performance venues on the planet.
The biggest names in show-business have graced this stage,
but the record for the longest-ever run of sold-out shows by a comedian...
Please welcome...Victoria Wood.
..is held by a star once described
as being extraordinary in her ordinariness.
Hello.
She used to bounce on the stage and just put her arms round the audience
of 5,000 people in the Albert Hall.
It felt like everything she was saying
was so conversational,
and she was only really talking to you.
I'm different sizes in different shops: 16 in some shops, 18 in some shops.
In Gap, I'm only a size 12 cos they're American.
In Marks & Spencer's, I'm only a size three cos they don't want to upset anybody.
In Topshop, my hips set off an alarm as I go through.
'Bleep bleep bleep bleep bleep bleep.'
The size of that building,
to entertain people the way she did:
she had the audience in the palm of her hand.
'You are now being held in a queue.
If you have a tone phone, please press
for your choice of relaxing listening.
Press one for the Blue Danube,
two for the Cuckoo Waltz,
three for Tommy Steele having a crack at Phantom Of The Opera.'
There was one moment when I turned round,
and I looked up...
Everybody was crying with laughter.
You know that laughter that you just can't stop?
I'm in a women's clinic, and I think, 'Well, I never knew
there were so many ways for women to fall to pieces.'
They've got their bosoms hanging out,
pelvic floors dangling.
There's a woman with a cervix in a margarine tub like this.
And she's going, 'I took it out to wash it. I couldn't get it back in.'
Victoria Wood played the Albert Hall almost 50 times,
performances that left some fans overcome with emotion.
After I'd seen that show,
I actually bumped into her in the street,
and I broke down and started crying.
I felt so silly.
But I said to her, 'You were amazing.
You were phenomenal,' and I meant every word of it.
And I gave her a hug,
and I can see her daughter was kind of like,
'Who's this woman going over the top?' You know?
But it wasn't over the top because it was quite genuine.
She was amazing that night.
But packing the Albert Hall night after night
would be just one of many high points in a career lasting 40 years.
I got up and I was just looking at these bags under my eyes here,
thinking, 'Shall I try and blot them out
or get some raffia and make a feature of them?'
And there's a... Please. There's a ring on the doorbell,
and it's a taxi driver, looking at me as if I was barmy.
I said, 'What's the matter? Have you never seen a woman in Deputy Dog pyjamas before?'
She definitely inspired
a whole generation of female comics.
I flew here on the famous Manchester shuttle.
It's rather an OLD aeroplane. I had to go next to the rear gunner.
The trouble is you don't get a proper movie because the flying time is so short.
You just get one of the air hostesses flicking through the Bunty very quickly.
Killer material, and the amazing thing was she did it all herself.
She wrote all her own jokes.
I just don't understand about caravanning.
I don't understand people who can only have a relaxed vacation
if they're accompanied at all times by their own washing-up brush.
And caravan sites - I mean, the people who go to caravan sites
live in a perfectly normal environment for 50 weeks of the year.
Then they suddenly feel obliged to sample life as it is lived
in a refugee camp after an earthquake.
What she did so brilliantly
is just hold up a mirror to real life, really.
I set off in my car down the motorway and I stopped on the hard shoulder,
and this police car pulled up. He said, 'Why have you stopped, madam?'
I said, 'I was listening to The Archers.' He said, 'I didn't hear that, madam.'
I said, 'They're having terrible trouble with the pigs at Grange Farm.'
One of the great ingredients of comedy is recognition,
and you would laugh because you recognised that situation.
When I was little, there were no party bags, no consolation prizes,
none of this - everybody has to go home with something.
When you played Musical Chairs, if you were out, you were out.
I mean, out in the street. 'Go on!'
'It's raining, Mrs Pickering.'
'I mean it.'
It's just her view of the world and her ear
and her extraordinary antennae for people's foibles
and their frailty
and their pomposity - all of that - you know?
She can spot it at sort of 1,000 miles.
She'd spot it and hear it.
And when you do Pass The Parcel now,
you have to put a little prize in each layer,
so that each child who unwraps a layer gets a prize.
None of that when I was little. You were lucky to get one at the end.
You'd unwrap the last thing and go, 'Nothing in it, Mrs Pickering.'
'No, that's life, that is. Think on.'
The journey to the Royal Albert Hall and comedy glory began in the 1950s
in suburban South Lancashire,
as Victoria revealed on The South Bank Show in 1996.
My house was that one on the end there with the tree and the roses.
My main memory of being in this house was being in that bedroom up there,
sitting in bed reading books,
because I was a compulsive reader even then.
Victoria's father Stanley was an insurance underwriter,
who wrote sketches in the evenings and played part-time in a dance band.
Her mother Nellie claimed to have no sense of humour.
I don't remember anybody coming to the house or anything like that.
Social life hadn't really kicked into gear.
And it never did, cos then we went up to this big house on the hill.
And nobody came to tea at all!
From the age of five, I lived in a massive bungalow,
a house that had been an anti-aircraft base,
that my mother had partitioned, by dragging bits of plywood off bomb sites
and lashing them to the top of a minivan,
and making rooms out of them. So it had lots and lots of rooms.
There were four of us, four children.
We could all have separate rooms.
And I had a room with a piano and a television in it.
I either watched television or played the piano or read or ate sweets,
and I just did those four things, usually all at the same time.
And I've based my career on at least three of them.
An early trip to the theatre
to see a female comedy pioneer would inspire the young Victoria.
Neville, stop being a train, dear, and come and sit down.
Well, get into the station and then sit down.
I saw Joyce Grenfell when I was about seven.
George...
George!
Don't do that.
That certainly planted the seed of a woman standing on stage alone.
I found that very appealing. As a very sort of isolating person,
I found that appealing - the idea of standing on stage on my own and not being with other people.
(SUSTAINED APPLAUSE)
(WOLF-WHISTLING)
I'm looking for my friend.
(LAUGHTER)
Have you seen her?
Kimberley!
She's really, really tall. She's really, really platinum.
She's had, like, these hair extensions.
(GASPS) Took ages to do - took eight hours.
Well, four for each armpit.
But it wasn't just a lesson about life on stage
that the young Victoria learnt from her comedy heroine Joyce Grenfell.
My sisters went to see her backstage
and my mother said, 'You can't go. You're too small.'
And she came out to find me, and said, 'Is this Vicky?'
Ooh, hello.
'If ever I do a show, I always, always go to the stage door
and wait until everybody's had an autograph and everybody's said what they want to say,
because I think it's really, really important.'
Be yourself - that's how I am.
From an early age, Victoria Wood knew she was born to perform.
But could she convince those who could make her dream career a reality?
Victoria Wood - a lovely singer, a lovely, clever song.
But I wonder whether or not the music
was just a little lacking in depth.
We're hopeless in this country, when you think of other races.
The Italians have got opera and the Spanish have Flamenco dancing.
What have we got? Weightwatchers. It's hopeless.
She was a brilliant writer,
like Alan Bennett, but a woman and with more jokes.
In India, you know, if a man dies,
the widow flings herself onto the funeral pyre.
In this country, she just goes into the kitchen and says,
'72 baps, Connie. You slice; I'll spread.'
Victoria Wood may have been a stand-up comedy genius,
but that would prove only one string to her bow.
She was the full thing, in terms of entertainment and show-business.
Stand-up comedy, acting, song writing. And that was remarkable.
In December 1988, millions of us joined a celebrity audience
to watch this most talented of stars in a performance that would go down in TV history.
# Let's do it, let's do it, share a night of wild romance
And an unforgettable rendition of her best-loved song, The Ballad Of Barry And Freda.
# To quote Milton, to eat Stilton
# To roll in gay abandon on the tufted Wilton
# Let's do it, let's do it tonight
# I can't do it, I can't do it
# I've got other little jobs on hand
# Don't grouse around the house - I've got a busy evening planned
# Stop nagging, I'm flagging
# You know as well as I do that the pipes want lagging
# I can't do it, I can't do it tonight
She wrote, she sang, she composed.
Is there no end to this woman's talents?
# Three cheers, it's years since I caught you even semi-nude
# Get drastic, gymnastic
# Wear your baggy Y-fronts with the loose elastic
Barry And Freda is the funniest, most brilliant song.
# I can't do it
She knew what words would spark a laugh.
# I feel silly - it's too chilly to go without my 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
It's about a married couple, and I think, every time she played it,
every wife in the audience nudged her husband and said,
'She's speaking to us.'
# No cautions, just contortions
# Smear an avocado on my lower portions
Not only is it funny, but it all fits musically.
# I can't do it
That's the musician in her - she was all about timing.
# I'm harassed, embarrassed - I wish you hadn't picked on me
# No dramas - give me my pyjamas
# The only girl I'm mad about is Judith Chalmers
It's a superb song, because it just ascends all the time.
# Let's do it, let's do it - I really want to run amok
There are so many verses. I don't know how she remembered it all.
# Be mighty, be flighty
# Come and melt the buttons on my flame-proof nightie
Yes, it just builds and builds, and you think it's going to stop.
No, it goes on and it gets better, and each verse is funnier.
# 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 bleakly, not meekly
# Beat me on the bottom with a Woman's Weekly
# Let's do it, let's do it tonight #
Thank you. (CHEERING)
The adulation from friends and fans in the audience
was in marked contrast to the reception Victoria received
when she first appeared on our screens in 1974...
# You're a star, you're a star
..on the ITV talent show New Faces.
Everybody watched New Faces. It used to get viewing figures of 15, 16 million viewers.
Please welcome Victoria Wood. (APPLAUSE)
The 21-year-old had just completed her drama degree at Birmingham University
when she made this bid for the big time.
# There's a tin in the office cupboard
# Labelled 'Lorraine'
She was that girl who played the piano.
# Because I've gone and got engaged again
And had the kind of bob haircut, and was funny.
# I wonder what they'll give me
The songs were musically well made.
# Money would be ideal
And they were witty.
# Probably be something practical
# In stainless steel
She stood out.
# I hope to get thin for the wedding
Victoria's piano skills were something she had picked up
in a typically unusual way.
# Because on the day I might fade away
# And be just a veil...
I did have lessons, but I couldn't cope
with being with a piano teacher. I was too shy. I used to sweat.
My hands slipped off the keys - I was so nervous.
So, I stopped going to piano lessons,
and I thought my parents would be cross if I played the piano, because I'm not having lessons,
so I used to play the piano in secret.
# Getting together
When they'd gone, I'd run to the piano,
and when I heard them come back, I'd get off and close the lid,
and the piano would be still steaming.
For years I did that, and then they said, 'We know you play the piano!'
And then I started having lessons again when I was 13.
A lovely, lovely singer. A lovely, clever song.
# Help yourself to wine
We need a bit more oomph on piano from her, to help that song along,
particularly with all those packed clubs that she'll be playing to.
# I don't think his mother likes me
Competing with Victoria on New Faces
was another fresh-faced, blond comedian.
We'd got through heats, both of us,
and we were in this kind of viewers' final.
She said, 'I think you'll win.' I said, 'No, I think you will win.'
Les Dennis: 80. Victoria Wood: 77.
But neither of us won in the end.
Our winner tonight is Tony Maiden.
(APPLAUSE)
I wanted to be terribly famous, really, and be a star,
and when I did New Faces, I thought I was terribly famous and a star.
But I wasn't at all.
I was stuck in a room in Birmingham, on the dole.
# I'll be back
# At social security
# Queuing up to be abused
But Victoria Wood's New Faces appearance had been noted.
# On a card index, 'a singer, slightly used'
# Maybe my degree will come in handy
And she was signed up to sing topical songs on the BBC1 show That's Life.
# Qualified me to drink shandy and that's all #
But the '70s wouldn't be just about the songs.
By 1979, Victoria Wood was showing signs of an unrivalled versatility,
by winning the first of many awards,
as the year's Most Promising Playwright.
Your Royal Highness, my lords, ladies and gentlemen,
I'd like to say thank you very much for this award.
Thank you to the Crucible Theatre and the ICA and my director, David Leland.
I wrote a sketch in a review at the Bush Theatre at Shepherd's Bush,
and David Leland was doing a season of new plays
at the Sheffield Crucible and asked me to write one,
and because I'd never written a play before, I didn't see a problem with that!
A TV version of this debut play about a talent contest soon followed
and gave us the first on-screen appearance of a double-act
that would become one of Britain's favourites.
It was fabulous to do. We just had a laugh all the time.
Often at the director's expense.
But I can remember him rushing down and saying, 'Just be funny.
It wasn't funny that time.' And we'd look at one another...
We went to see Freddie Garrity once. Freddie And The Dreamers.
In his dressing-room. That was like somebody's sitting-room.
Had a telly and a bed and everything.
I went off him, though, cos he had a string vest.
Not very nice here, is it?
JULIE WALTERS: 'Talent was wonderful.'
Got to start somewhere.
She'd never written anything like that before, and to write it in three weeks, and the songs...
# I want to be 14 again
# When sex was just called number ten
# And I was up to seven and a half
# Boys were for love and girls were for fun
# You burst out laughing if you saw a nun
I Want To Be 14 Again is just an amazing, gorgeous song,
and, you know, she gave that to me.
Who did you say it was, again?
Wood & Walters.
In 1982, this promising new duo were signed up to make their own sketch series.
She shared her talent and her time
and her stage time and screen time with other people, constantly.
We do an astringent, but, really, with pores that big,
you'd be better off with a darning needle and some pink wool.
There's no-one like Victoria for generosity.
I mean, in everything I've done with her, it's been like that.
Every single thing. I've had all the punchlines, virtually.
Having lessons, are you? Professor Hartley.
Oh, yeah? You should ask for a refund!
Wood & Walters received a BAFTA nomination,
but even better was to come for both its stars,
with a series that delivered some of British TV's greatest sketches.
Mrs Overall, that macaroon you just choked on -
I'm going to send the recipe to the Weekly News. Ooh, I am pleased.
Young men will come up to me and quote Miss Babs' lines at me.
They remember it better than I do.
Are we off?
I thought that went quite well, didn't you?
We're still on air! Oh!
January 1985. The Sinclair C5 electric car is launched.
Ronald Reagan is sworn in for a second term as US President.
And millions of us tune in to see Victoria Wood's first BBC prime-time sketch series,
featuring a cast of actors who would go on to make their names in the show.
At school we would come in,
in second year,
and all we would talk about is As Seen On TV.
Oh, do you have cork? We have tufted shag.
Well, we have to be able to mop, you see, with Dad's habits.
Dicky bladder?
No, we call him Dad.
In the early 1980s, there were very few, A, females on television,
and B, people speaking in a northern accent,
and C, female, northern accent and hilariously funny.
You're separated, aren't you?
Well, he's living in t'loft.
He's got the lilo and the slow cooker. We don't speak.
I thought, 'This is a unique voice that we've not heard before on TV.'
Now, that's the blue of our Margaret's shower curtain, there.
Where? Them varicose veins there!
She came from leftfield all the time.
You thought, 'Where's that from?'
They're a black lace-up, £15.99.
Are they? Yes. Can I try them on?
On your feet? Yes.
All right! Why not?
No, sorry, sorry.
The black ones. They're a flat lace-up.
Beg pardon? Well, those aren't flat.
Flatter now!
She was an unbelievably generous comedy writer in many ways.
Many of her most famous sketches don't feature her.
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 gypsy creams,
but that's the comprehensive system for you.
I love Susie Blake as well, what she wrote for the continuity girl.
Of course, obesity is a tremendous problem for a lot of people.
A lot of weak-willed, self-indulgent guzzlers, that is.
Every week we used to roar laughing at the documentary bit.
She always used to do a spoof documentary each week.
Are you worried about tomorrow? Well, I am in a way, because, er,
I've never swum such a long way, and some of it's in the dark
and I don't really like the dark.
And...if-if I do get to t'French coast,
I don't talk French very well, so...
I don't do French. I do woodwork.
But I know a few bits. Um...
'Bonjour' and 'Aujourd'hui'.
And it was the pauses and little looks and stuff...
..to camera.
I'll do double prayers tonight anyway.
I remember thinking, 'That's what I want to do!'
# ACORN ANTIQUES THEME
Acorn Antiques was just... just a masterpiece.
'I wanted to have a running soap that went from episode to episode.'
Yes, that's much better.
If we deliver these antiques on Friday morning,
we can take delivery of these antiques in the afternoon.
There were two things that inspired Acorn Antiques.
One, for the look of it, was Crossroads,
which then was on four times a week.
That was the first soap to be on every day, from Monday to Thursday.
Make a list of everything. Yes. And another rule is... Whoops!
I know they didn't allow them any editing time,
so they couldn't go back, and if they got in a pickle,
they had to get out of 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.
She pursued it to the limit that they'll be in the wrong place.
Who's the sole beneficiary now?
That's the problem.
She's trying to back out of the shot. She's forgotten her lines.
I... I was just going to say...
..somebody had better answer that phone!
(PHONE RINGS) Oh. I suppose I'd better answer it.
You answer it! And I'll get you a nice cup of...hot cup of coffee.
You don't have to.
You ARE the sole proprietor of Acorn Antiques now.
Hello?
The other thing was Waggoners' Walk,
which was this shocking thing on the radio,
this terrible 15-minute serial where they all talked in cliches
and exclamation marks.
Why don't you tell me all about it?
The fact is, Mrs O,
my life seems completely grey, bleak and pointless.
So I took the style of Waggoners' Walk
and I mixed it with the look of Crossroads,
and then we added in some people like Mrs Overall.
Well, yes, sometimes that's God's way of getting you to enjoy Gardeners' World!
(GRUNTS)
You see?
You're smiling. Things can't be all that bad. Out with it!
Ooh! Bloody Nora!
I've never laughed so much in anything. It was such fun.
I could hear the galley,
'If you do that again, we're going to move on!'
We couldn't stop laughing.
But there was one classic sketch
that had the show's producer confused when he first read it.
Most of the sketches lasted a couple of pages.
This scene came in on one page and I said, 'What's this?'
Ready to order, sir?
Madam? Jane?
Er, yes, what's the soup of the day, please?
I'll just go and find out...
'And she said it's a performance piece.'
What time's your train? Twenty-five to.
Oh... Well, that's not too bad.
We didn't know whether it would work or not.
I guess we thought it'll either work or it won't,
and we'll just go for it.
Timing is all of the essence in that sketch,
and she times that walk back so slowly
that the audience starts to build up expectation
of what she's going to say.
And then she just said...
Ready to order, sir?
..in the same way that she said the first line.
Madam?
Er, yes, I wanted to know what the soup of the day was.
That's right.
No.
I've forgotten.
I'll just go and check.
Won't be one moment.
Every time she does the journey,
you can feel the audience anticipation working up,
because they now know what the sketch is all about.
Ready to order now?
Being one of the customers was an agony... (CHUCKLES)
Because how on earth do you keep a straight face
with all of that going on?
If you watch carefully, you can see them not looking at each other,
in order to avoid that moment when they're both going to laugh.
I had to bite the inside of my mouth
because, in rehearsals, we never, never got through it.
Two soups.
Afterwards, I had blood in my mouth.
I don't believe this. These are empty!
Waitress!
Oh, God preserve us! Look, we'll have to go.
MICHAEL BALL: On paper, nothing is funny about that, particularly.
Given the right handling, it's just comedy genius.
Ooh! You must have been quite peckish.
To take those ordinary things that all of us go through
and make us...laugh is the best gift, isn't it?
Celia Imrie and Duncan Preston would both become part of
a select group of actors
who Victoria would call on again and again in the years to come.
You may find retractable bollards humorous
but, to my mind, they've revolutionised flexible parking.
She put me on the map.
Come in for a bit, eh? Well, it's just - What?!
Well, my mum will be putting the chain on quite soon.
Phone her!
I mean, I've grown old with her.
See that? That used to be hair.
Look, Jim...
..this is just a cup of tea.
Hey, that's really profound (!)
She created a wonderful team of us
and it meant that we could work together very fast.
I've never been camping. That's why this is such a thrill.
What do you mean, never been camping?
I haven't ever been, sorry.
Jacqueline Thompson, when I met your mother, did she or did she not say,
as an adolescent, you were always in tents?
Intense!
I was always intense.
My idea of total happiness
was always a script from Vic dropping on the mat.
Now Malcolm - what do you think he meant by, 'Lively social life'?
Drink. He wants 'An uninhibited companion'. To drink with.
What do you think he meant by 'Life peppered with personal tragedy'?
Hangovers.
I said to her, 'Look, I don't want to do myself out of a job,
but you've got to stop it.'
What was wrong with the first skirt? It made me look middle-aged.
You ARE middle-aged.
I have the same bust measurement as Gina Lollobrigida.
Mm, and the same hip measurement as Patrick Moore.
I said to her, 'You are capable of writing something for Meryl Streep and Anthony Hopkins,
but you need to get on with it,
because I'd like to be around when you get your first Oscar.'
Her regular cast knew
that a Victoria Wood script would mean guaranteed quality
and guaranteed hard work.
Never more so than during her hit sitcom Dinnerladies,
which we first saw in 1998.
She was a huge perfectionist
and insisted on every single word being right,
because it was all so rhythmic and musical.
Erm, but quite scary though,
I mean, really, trying to remember.
Have you ever had a relationship go completely dead on you?
I don't know. Are you having a problem? I am, you see.
Shall I make a brew? Lovely, thanks.
Mikey - you know, Mr Michael - he's awfully sweet and everything,
but it's not doing it for me, there's nothing happening really.
What do you want? Oh, I dunno.
Romance, passion, some sort of unbridled physicality would be nice.
Sorry, I meant tea or coffee?
Dinnerladies was a bit like being on an ice rink actually,
because we'd do it first of all on the Friday night.
Then Geoff Posner and Victoria would watch it on Saturday morning
and then Victoria would rewrite the bits that perhaps didn't work.
Bren, can I just pop into the toilet a minute with Clint?
Nothing sordid. We're just...
Come on, lover. Ignore us!
There would be cuts and rewrites. It wasn't easy work.
It was nice rehearsing it and then you think, 'Argh!' on the night,
you know, scary.
If you have a minute, two black coffees.
She was never satisfied with it, so she would go away, sometimes,
and she had little kids then,
she said one night, I think, she stayed up the whole night writing.
I mean, can you imagine? Excuse me.
I'm Bren's mother Petula Gordino.
And this is Clint. Clint?
My fiance.
Clint's mother's a bit stressed by our engagement,
so we're going to Barcelona, let her cool off.
I think Clint's going to be very stimulated by the architecture.
But what was this funniest of women onscreen like,
away from the limelight?
When she was in front of a camera,
she was quite different from when she was at home.
People project onto me, they project onto any performer
that they see on television. Mm.
They have an idea of what they think they're like.
What do you think they project onto you? That I'm nice. Mm.
I'm not, but that's what they think I am. (GIGGLES)
She was awkward in private.
Even with people who were quite friendly, she was awkward.
My husband says they think I'm their best friend, you know.
Victoria was married to magician Geoffrey Durham for 22 years,
until their divorce in 2002.
Their two children - Grace and Henry -
would grew up away from the spotlight.
She actually was almost withdrawn at times.
You know, she was quite an alone sort of person.
I was going to say lonely, that's not true, but she-she was a loner.
Everyone's going, 'She was very private, very reclusive,'
but no, she just got on with her life.
And if people stopped her, she was absolutely lovely,
but she wasn't overly fond of it.
She would much rather not be noticed.
She wasn't looking for attention.
People felt they knew Victoria
because she wrote about the everyday.
She wrote about shops, she wrote about going into bargain stores,
about knickers that didn't fit, about being large.
Can I help you?
Erm, just wondered if you had these in a 14.
(LAUGHS) You what?
This is a boutique, not the elephant house!
Hey, Eileen, we've got another fatso in!
People identify with Victoria because she...
you know, sometimes was a bit overweight.
Off I go, then.
She'd sort of say, 'Well, look at me, I'm not perfect,'
and she had an amazing ability
to touch other people's sense of insecurity and make it OK for them.
Four! Three, four! Three, four!
Three, four! Three, two... Now!
Now!
(LAUGHTER)
As we counted down to a new millennium,
25 years after that first New Faces appearance,
Victoria Wood was one of the most famous comedy stars in Britain.
Three step.
(LAUGHTER)
But there'd be drama just round the corner,
in yet another twist to Victoria's story.
I didn't expect to see her want to do a straight role like that,
and I think it was a big challenge and she certainly met it.
You make people laugh, you're a lovely dancer
and you can hold a tune.
But, more than that
and I mean this as the mother who carried you and nursed you and raised you,
you aren't any good at anything else.
Born and raised in Lancashire, throughout her career
Victoria Wood took her experiences of everyday life in the north of England
and turned them into something everyone could enjoy.
So I come out of t'toilets, right, and he says,
'Scallop face, your skirt's caught up in your knickers at t'back.'
I said, 'I pity you, cos it's t'latest fashion. I read it in a book.'
He says, 'What book?' I said, 'Vogue, that's what book.'
Basically, she had that essence of a...
..what I would call a northern writer
who can say things as they are and make it very, very funny.
'When do you read Vogue?' I said, 'When I'm in hospital having exploratory surgery, that's when.'
So he said, 'Oh.' He didn't. He did.
I love the fact that she allowed herself
to fully celebrate where she came from and everything about it.
# CORONATION STREET THEME
Vic's Coronation Street parody was just genius.
Oh, thank you, Ena.
And good health, everybody.
I'll give you good health, Minnie Caldwell.
Oh, Ena, I'm sure I never meant -
You never do mean, Minnie Caldwell, so think on and look sharp.
Ooh, sup up and shut up.
I've heard enough skriking in this bug hutch
to last me from t'Weatherfield Viaduct to Whit Week Walk.
The language itself, there is a natural poetry in that,
a phraseology which she captured so beautifully in her writing.
OK, I write plays, but do you know what I write 'em 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.
'My north.' (CHUCKLES)
'Where do you live?' 'Chiswick.' (GIGGLES)
By the mid-'90s, Victoria was ready to turn her stories
about life in northern towns into prime-time TV drama.
(ALL HUMMING) # Magic Moments
She got a bit bored with doing sketches
and had other things she wanted to do, which she could do.
Pat And Margaret would see her reunited
with her most famous onscreen partner,
for the emotional story of two northern sisters
whose lives had taken very different paths.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
Really, boys, you're very naughty.
The little vignettes that we saw in As Seen On TV,
she realised she could actually turn these into big stories
and hold an audience's attention.
Yes, Margaret Mottershead, motorway waitress,
the sister you haven't seen for 27 years,
now one of the highest-paid actresses in American television.
A very special magic moment.
Here she is, from Glamour,
the glamorous Patricia Bedford.
(CHEERING)
Isn't that our best one yet?
I think that is a brilliant, brilliant film.
And she is wonderful in it.
It's...it's heaven.
It's touching and hilarious.
And tragic. And...
It's really her.
They've an awful lot of catching-up to do.
Which we'll find out all about next week.
Pat and Margaret, the two people,
a kind of part of her, a kind of part of all of us,
that's why we find it funny.
Pat. I'm sorry.
Would you excuse me a moment?
Heart-breaking actually. And it was...
wonderful to see her in a completely different light.
Sorry, you've lost me.
So, a one-off payment.
You sign this.
It's just to say we're not related, I haven't got a sister.
You have no claim on Pat Bedford Inc.
That's my company.
I'm not signing this.
What? You have got a sister.
I am your sister.
You know I am.
It's that wish to tell a story is what it is.
And that's all stand-up is, is stories.
And that's all drama is.
It would be another drama 12 years later
and set again in the north
that saw Victoria add to the many awards she had received for comedy.
And the BAFTA goes to...
Victoria Wood. For Housewife, 49.
BRAGG: Housewife, 49 was a triumph
and I was delighted when she won those awards.
The story was based on the real-life wartime diaries
of a housewife from Barrow-in-Furness.
SIR LENNY HENRY: Vic was a very serious woman.
And so when I watched her in Housewife, 49 or anything else,
playing a serious role it never surprised me.
'My name is Nella Last. I suffer from...nerves.
I'm very cheery always in company.
I cry all the time.'
She did such a good job on Housewife, 49.
The way she called the diary to a drama was amazing.
Who wants to read what you've got to say?
I don't know who wants to read it,
but I'll tell you why I have to do it.
It's because I have nobody,
I have nobody to talk to.
I don't have a sympathetic, loving, interested friend.
I don't have that person.
I only have you.
In 2011, Victoria Wood was back on our screens in a lighter role,
playing the young Eric's mum in a drama about the formative years
of the northern comedy double act Morecambe and Wise.
Ma... I can see Ma.
And she's not laughing.
Just entertaining the lads. I'll entertain you in a minute.
You can't play cowboys and Indians all your life.
Can't I? Home!
Now. You'll be late for your dance class.
I think Victoria certainly captured my grandmother Sadie.
She certainly got the essence of the woman
and particularly the northern woman of that generation.
Hang on. (SPITS) You've got breakfast on your chin.
People are looking. Yeah, well...
People always will look at that kind of a face.
Bye, Mum.
I'll say hello to Dad for you.
Victoria Wood was a brilliant actress.
Therefore she could play anything.
She could play high comedy and she could be very serious.
Victoria's last big project in 2014
was a musical set in Manchester.
In this TV adaptation of the stage hit,
she utilised all her skills.
I particularly adored That Day We Sang
and I remember watching it and thinking,
she's writing a romantic comedy.
What would you say was your main memory
of being in the Manchester Children's Choir?
That it was joyful.
# Sacred to ease and happy love...
Sorry, are you crying?
It's... Sorry.
I haven't heard it since...
It's very...
Sorry.
Just that day.
Remembering that day.
Sorry.
It's perfect that the last major piece of work of hers that we have
is incorporating every one of her voices.
# Nymphs and shepherds come away...
To write something musical...
# All those years at the back of the queue
# Don't seem real
# All those dreams that were never on view
# Will reveal
# All we felt that we didn't deserve...
..full of humour, full of pathos and northern.
# Hand in hand we can summon the nerve
# To feel love...
SIR LENNY HENRY: A fantastic evocation of a period. Great songs.
And she can literally say, 'I did all of that.'
# Till those dreams
# Come true
# Nymphs and shepherds come away
# Nymphs and shepherds, Nymphs and shepherds come away
# Ah-aaaah! #
It was her vision. I think we were gonna see more of that...
if she'd lived.
On Wednesday April 20th,
Victoria Wood died of cancer.
She was just 62.
The first lady of British comedy
and the first British woman to make it as a stand-up comedian,
Victoria Wood was both a trail-blazer
and a genius of gentle joke telling.
It was a terrible shock, terrible shock,
because...
I doubt many people knew that she was ill.
I've never had so many people come up to me and just say...
"God, you must be sad."
It happens when you die, doesn't it?
You really find out what the world thinks.
RICHARD CURTIS: Victoria's legacy is all around us.
She started female comedy for our generation.
JAMES CORDEN: What a thing to leave behind,
that you made a whole nation just laugh.
Every single sketch, play and sitcom,
she wrote entirely on her own.
I don't know anybody else that's created that amount of work
of such high quality so consistently.
We are beyond privileged that she shared so much with us.
But I mourn what all of us have missed out on,
what she would have given us.
She was in her prime, I think,
and it's a terrible loss.
My abiding memory
is as a great, great friend.
She was unlike anyone.
Beyond unique.
She is very much missed.
Yeah, she went too soon.
'And the BAFTA goes to...
Victoria Wood.'
'I think I've been really lucky, I have to say.
I think I slipped through a crack somewhere.'
This is The Swish Of The Curtain by Pamela Brown.
This is my favourite book as a child.
"She took the heavy statue and turned to the applauding audience.
She curtsied, then looking up to the familiar faces in the gallery,
kissed her hand. The applause grew deafening
and gradually the people rose in their seats still clapping.
The theatre stood and cheered and stamped...
..while Lyn bowed and smiled for an eternity."
Marvellous.
(APPLAUSE)
'You might think that the reality is only a disappointment after that,
but really it's not been. It's as good as this.'
subtitles by Deluxe