Rebecca Front presents this two-part look back at Victoria Wood's stand-up and songs using her own archives and tapes - including never-before-heard material
Victoria Wood was a comedian, actress and all-round national treasure. She wrote and starred in countless sketches, plays, musicals, films and sitcoms over four decades, winning numerous awards, and her work remains timeless to this day. With her perceptive observational humour, she made the everyday and mundane hilarious - but how did she do it?
In this BBC Radio 4 documentary, Rebecca Front uses Victoria Wood's personal rehearsal recordings, rare live performances and behind-the-scenes footage to reveal some of her comedy tricks and techniques. We hear about her instinctive sense of rhythm, amazing rhyming ability and unerring knack for finding the perfect word to make a sentence sing, and learn how she honed her unique talent to become one of Britain's favourite funny women.
With unprecedented access to Victoria's own boxes of battered cassette tapes, this programme is a shameless chance to hear some wonderful stand-up comedy, characters and songs, mixed with a look back at what made her so funny and so universally loved.
Executive Producer: Geoff Posner
Produced by David Tyler
A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4.
Dinnerladies is a classic BBC sitcom based around the lives of the staff of the canteen at Manchester factory HWD Components. Written by and starring Victoria Wood a Brenda, these eight classic TV episodes are brilliantly funny, where the jokes fly as thick and as fast as granary torpedoes.
Along with the day to day feeding the faces of folk, the canteen staff Bren, Twink, Jean (and all the others!) have to contend with the arrival of a Royal on site, a Japanese-themed party complete with costumes, and the controversial delivery of new uniforms. And will Tony finally succumb to Brenda's advances?
With a wonderful cast including Victoria Wood, Celia Imrie and Thelma Barlow also star in this trayful of comedy from the BBC hotplate.
Episode list:
Monday
Royals
Moods
Party
Catering
Minnellium
Gravy
Toast
Please note that sound quality may vary due to the archive nature of these recordings
One of Britain’s most popular writers and comedians journeys through the British Empire - as seen on BBC TV. Victoria Wood was named after Queen Victoria. So who better to take us on a journey through the British Empire? The story of the Empire is a key part of the story of Queen Victoria’s reign and the Empire was the largest the world had ever known, covering a fifth of the earth’s surface and including a quarter of its population. Victoria’s mammoth journey takes in the beauty and splendour of Hong Kong, Borneo, Ghana, Jamaica, Newfoundland, New Zealand and Australia before she finishes at the Victoria Falls in Zambia. ‘Britain used to be top country. English was top language and pink was the colour on the maps. Now when people talk about it, the Empire’s an embarrassment, something slightly regrettable.’ With those thoughts, Victoria didn’t know what she would find, or what welcome she would get from those countries that have evolved since being colonised, and that was her journey: tip-toeing round the remnants of the Empire to all those places named after the grumpy-looking monarch who never went further than the Isle of Wight. 'Victoria’s Empire' is read by Victoria Wood and Russell Boulter and is a worldwide journey of a lifetime seen through the eyes of one of our most popular celebrities.
A selection of classic moments from Victoria Wood's award-winning BBC TV programme.
Here it is - the first collection of assembled highlights from Victoria Wood's award-winning BBC television show 'Victoria Wood - As Seen on TV'.
This release spills forth the likes of Julie Walters, Patricia Routledge, Celia Imrie, Duncan Preston and Susie Blake in an all-singing, all-dancing (well, in a manner of speaking) spectacular.
Victoria sings some of her classics, including 'the ballad of Barry and Frieda', 'Let's Do It Tonight', and brings together the very finest episodes of Britain's best-loved soap, the consummate display of method acting which is 'Acorn Antiques'.
And as if that weren't enough, tucked in amongst the inter-sketch nooks and crannies, we get Victoria's unique perspective on life. Anyone else want to swap a man for a thirteen-colour biro?
Julie Walters, Alan Rickman, Dora Bryan, Jim Broadbent and Celia Imrie, Hugh Lloyd, and many more join Victoria Wood in this positively bloated bumper collection oozing with songs, sketches, and monologues.
