Obituary: Victoria Wood

Died: April 20, 2016

VICTORIA Wood, who has died of cancer aged 62, was a comedian, songwriter and actress much loved for sketches, sit-coms and songs that delighted in the silliness of ordinary life. She will also be remembered for a long line of eccentric characters brought to life by her team of regular co-stars such as Celia Imrie and Julie Walters – characters like the scatty tea lady Mrs Overall and the sexually frustrated Freda, who would sing to her boyfriend Barry over and over again “let’s do it”.

However, there was always much more in her comedy than silliness – shows like Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV, Dinnerladies and Acorn Antiques were funny, camp and colourful, but her writing was also about nostalgia, melancholia and awkwardness. Later in her career, she won a BAFTA for Housewife, 49, a touching drama she wrote and starred in about a woman who volunteers during the Second World War and ends up discovering who she really is.

Much of the inspiration for the comedy and drama came from Wood’s own background – her childhood was not happy and as a teenager she was withdrawn and over-weight; later, she had an unhappy break-up from her husband, the magician Geoffrey Durham and underwent therapy in her forties. In an interview with The Herald last year, she said she was interested in writing about the people who are slightly outside the mainstream; people on the outside looking in.

Her output of songs and sketches was prodigious although it became increasingly varied later in her career. The most famous of her series was Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV in the 1980s, which featured songs and sketches including Acorn Antiques, the glorious send-up of Crossroads; there was also two series of her sit-com Dinnerladies. She also made documentaries on subjects as varied as Dad’s Army and the British Empire, and produced a docu-drama about Morecambe and Wise, and her last project was a musical called That Day We Sang about a recording by a children’s choir that became an unexpected hit.

Her career had started in a familiar way when she won the talent show New Faces in 1973, and despite her introverted personality, Wood was always drawn to performing. She grew up in a ramshackle house in Bury, Greater Manchester, jealous of her older, thinner sisters and looking in vain for validation from her parents – her father was an insurance salesman, her mother a depressive and neither much believed in handing out praise. For Wood, showbusiness seemed like a possible escape route.

“It’s not a paradox,” she said when asked about her childhood. "I think that it's often these children who feel they don't quite fit in, they're not part of the group – I think a lot of very seemingly shy people have got this ability to connect with a group, rather than one-on-one. And I just knew, I just knew I had that. I couldn't define it, but I knew I had it."

It began to show when Wood went to Birmingham University to study drama before dabbling in cabaret and appearing on New Faces. Two years later, she had a regular slot on That’s Life, Esther Rantzen’s consumer affairs programme, although Wood was unclear how to capitalise on her early success and struggled emotionally and began over-eating to compensate.

It was meeting her future husband Geoffrey Durham, who became better known as the magician The Great Soprendo, that changed things. They met in Leicester in 1976 when they were both appearing in a show together and Wood credited him with giving her confidence in her own talents. “I couldn’t have started being a stand-up comic without him,” she said. “I didn’t have the bottle but he encouraged me, otherwise I’d have probably written plays or done something in the background.”

The plays Wood did write, including Talent, about a young woman who enters a talent contest in a run down nightclub, brought her to the attention of Granada Television, who offered her a show. Wood remembered working with Julie Walters in a theatre show and suggested her as co-star, which led to the sketch show Wood and Walters. It also featured Duncan Preston, who would also become a regular member of Wood’s informal repertory company.

Wood and Walters was not a slick, finished product by a long shot, but the BBC recognised the talent and offered Wood her own show Victoria Wood As Seen on TV, which began in 1984 and featured many of the sketches and songs that would linger in her fans’ memories – perhaps the most loved was The Ballad of Barry and Freda (Let’s Do it) about Freda’s efforts to make love to her husband and his efforts to avoid it at all costs.

Among the other famous, and funny, sketches in the show was Acorn Antiques, a send-up of the ropey characterisation and staging of soaps likes Crossroads. Wood played the hysterical Miss Berta and Celia Imrie was the catty Miss Babs but the star was Julie Walters as the bendy-backed, bizarre Miss Overall.

Acorn Antiques went on to become a cult all of its own and was later revived in the most surprising format: a musical directed by Trevor Nunn. It opened at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, for a limited run starring most of the original cast in 2005 and was then revived for national tour the following year.

The show was a huge popular hit, although by this point in her career Wood had started to explore more serious work. In 2006, she wrote Housewife, 49 for ITV, which was inspired by the diaries of Nella Last, a real woman from Cumbria who managed to find a sense of purpose and a sense of self in her downtrodden life through working for the Women’s Voluntary Service during the Second World War. It was highly personal project for Wood, who also played Nella, and the series won two BAFTAs, including one for Wood as best actress.

Her last work was also among her most personal and was inspired by a documentary Wood saw about the Manchester Children's Choir recording of Purcell's Nymphs and Shepherds in 1929 (the recording went on to become a hit and was played on the radio for years afterwards). That Day We Sang told the story of two fictional members of the choir who are reunited late in life and fall in love. The piece was originally created for the Manchester International Festival in 2011, before being turned into a television film for the BBC.

In many ways, That Day We Sang was typical Victoria Wood (there was comedy song about falling in love featuring the lyrics "Enids are not kissed under skies that are starry, we don't go on safari/No Leo whisks you off to Rio, just Carry on Cleo") but it was also a wistful drama about the past and Wood, who was 61 at the time, spoke about the struggle to convince TV producers to feature older women on the screen. "There's a missing bit in the middle but there's millions of us," she said. She was also nostalgic about the Manchester of her childhood. "The buildings of my childhood, which were all pitch black and covered in soot, they have either been cleaned or they're not there."

Her other recent work include Eric & Ernie about the great comedy duo, but it is the comedy hits of the 1980s and 90s that will form the biggest part of her comedy legacy. As well as two series of As Seen on TV, there were another two series of Dinnerladies, and several Christmas specials. There was also a series of one-off plays under the title of Victoria Wood and an excellent TV play called Pat and Margaret in which she and Julie Walters played two sisters who had had two very different lives and are forced into an awkward reunion.

Wood’s stand-up tours were also massive hits (she sold out the Albert Hall for 15 nights running on one of them) but in her forties she was also struggling behind the scenes with her personal life. It was her husband who had encouraged her to do stand-up in the first place but their marriage broke down in 2002, much to Wood’s distress.

Her most recent work included a number of documentaries including Victoria’s Empire, in which she travelled the world exploring parts of the world that used to be part of the British Empire. She also made a BBC documentary about a sitcom that had partly inspired her own comedy: Dad’s Army.

Wood was awarded an CBE in 2008, won four BAFTAs and was nominated for many others. She had been suffering from cancer and is survived by her children Henry and Grace.