Victoria Wood Biography

Victoria Wood (19 May 1953 - 20 April 2016) was an English comedian, actress, singer and songwriter, screenwriter and director. Wood wrote and starred in sketches, plays, musicals, films and sitcoms, and her live comedy act was interspersed with her own compositions, which she performed on piano. Much of her humour was grounded in everyday life and included references to quintessentially "British" activities, attitudes and products. She was noted for her skills in observing culture and in satirising social classes.

Wood started her career in 1974 by appearing on the ATV talent show New Faces. She established herself as a comedy star in the 1980s, winning a BAFTA TV Award in 1986 for the sketch series Victoria Wood as Seen on TV (1985-87), and became one of Britain's most popular stand-up comics, winning a second BAFTA for An Audience with Victoria Wood (1988). In the 1990s she wrote and co-starred in the television film Pat and Margaret (1994) and the sitcom Dinnerladies (1998-2000). She won two more BAFTA TV Awards, including Best Actress, for her 2006 ITV1 television film, Housewife, 49. Her frequent long-term collaborators included Julie Walters, Celia Imrie, Duncan Preston, and Anne Reid. In 2006, Wood came tenth in ITV's poll of the British public's 50 Greatest TV Stars.

Early years

Victoria Wood was the youngest child of Stanley Wood, an insurance salesman, who also wrote songs for his company's Christmas parties, and Nellie Wood (ne Mape). She had three siblings: a brother, Chris, and two sisters, Penny and Rosalind.

Wood was born in Prestwich and brought up in Bury - both then in Lancashire. She was educated at Fairfield County Primary school and Bury Grammar School for Girls, where she immediately found herself out of her depth. She recalled in an interview for Desert Island Discs in 2007:

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Wood developed eating disorders, but in 1968, her father gave her a piano for her 15th birthday. She later said of this unhappy time "The good thing about being isolated is you get a good look at what goes on. I was reading, writing and working at the piano all the time. I was doing a lot of other things that helped me to perform". Later that year she joined the Rochdale Youth Theatre Workshop, where she felt she was "in the right place and knew what I was doing" and she made an impression with her comic skill and skill in writing. She went on to study drama at the University of Birmingham.

Career

1970s

Wood began her show business career while an undergraduate, appearing on the TV talent show New Faces in 1974. It led to an appearance in a sketch show featuring the series' winners The Summer Show. Her break came as a novelty act on the BBC's consumer affairs programme That's Life! in 1976. She met long-term collaborator Julie Walters in the early 1970s when Wood applied for Manchester Polytechnic, and coincidentally met again when they appeared in the same theatre revue In at the Death in 1978 (for which Wood wrote a brief sketch). Its success led to the commissioning of Wood's first play Talent (in 1978), starring Hazel Clyne (in a role originally written for Walters), for which Wood won an award for the Most Promising New Writer. Peter Eckersley, the head of drama at Granada Television, saw Talent and invited Wood to create a television adaptation. This time Julie Walters took the lead role, while Wood reprised her stage role.

1980-88

The success of the television version of Talent led to Wood writing the follow-up, Nearly a Happy Ending. Shortly afterwards she wrote a third play for Granada, Happy Since I Met You, again with Walters alongside Duncan Preston as the male lead. In 1980, she wrote and starred in the stage play Good Fun.

Recognising her talent, Eckersley offered Wood a sketch show, although she was unsure of the project; she only agreed to go ahead if Walters received equal billing. Eckersley came up with an obvious title - Wood and Walters, and the pilot episode was recorded. It led to a full series, featuring Duncan Preston and a supporting cast. In the period between the completion of the pilot and the shooting of the series, Eckersley died. Wood credited him with giving her her first big break, and felt that Wood and Walters suffered due to his death. She was not impressed by Brian Armstrong, his fill-in, and was of the opinion that he hired unsuitable supporting actors.

Wood appeared as a presenter in Yorkshire Television's 1984 schools television programme for hearing-impaired children, Insight, in a remake of the series originally presented by Derek Griffiths. In 1982 and 1983 she appeared as a panellist on BBC Radio 4's Just a Minute.

Wood left Granada in 1984 for the BBC, who promised her more creative control over projects. Later that year, her sketch show Victoria Wood as Seen on TV went into production. Wood chose the actors: her friend Julie Walters once again starred, as did Duncan Preston. Wood's friend Celia Imrie and Susie Blake and Patricia Routledge were in the cast. As Seen on TV had the Acorn Antiques sketch, a parody of a low-budget soap opera, Crossroads, and rumoured to be named after an antiques shop in her birthplace. Acorn Antiques is remembered for characters such as "Mrs Overall" (played by Walters), the deliberately bad camera angles and wobbling sets, and Celia Imrie's sarcastic tone as "Miss Babs". Wood's most popular comic song, "The Ballad of Barry and Freda (Let's Do It)", originated in this show. It tells the story of Freda (a woman eager for sex) and Barry (an introverted man terrified of sex), and makes clever use of allusions to a multitude of risqu activities while avoiding all taboo words. A second series of Victoria Wood as Seen on TV was made in 1986, followed by a one-off 'special' in 1987.

In 1988 she appeared in the BAFTA-winning An Audience with Victoria Wood for ITV. At the time of recording the show, she was six months pregnant.

1989-99

During this period Wood moved away from the sketch show format and into more self-contained works, often with a bittersweet flavour. Victoria Wood (six parts, 1989) featured Wood in several individual stories such as "We'd Quite Like To Apologise", set in an airport departure lounge, and "Over to Pam", set around a fictional talk show. She briefly returned to sketches for the 1992 Christmas Day special Victoria Wood's All Day Breakfast. The television film Pat and Margaret (1994), starring Wood and Julie Walters as long-lost sisters with very different lifestyles, continued her return to stand-alone plays with a poignant undercurrent to the comedy.

In 1994 Wood starred in the one-off BBC 80-minute programme Victoria Wood: Live in Your Own Home. The special featured stand-up routines and sketches, with Julie Walters and Duncan Preston. Her first sitcom Dinnerladies (1998), continued her now established milieu of mostly female, mostly middle-aged characters depicted vividly and amusingly, but with a counterpoint of sadder themes.

2000-05

December 2000 saw the Christmas sketch show special Victoria Wood with All the Trimmings, featuring her regular troupe of actors and a string of special guest stars. During this period Wood tended to move away from comedy to focus on drama. She continued to produce one-off specials including Victoria Wood's Sketch Show Story (2002) and Victoria Wood's Big Fat Documentary (2005).

Wood wrote her first musical, Acorn Antiques: The Musical!, which opened in 2005 at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, London, for a limited period, directed by Trevor Nunn. It starred most of the original cast, with Sally Ann Triplett playing Miss Berta (played in the series by Wood). Wood played Julie Walters' character Mrs Overall for matinee performances.

2006-10

Wood wrote the one-off ITV serious drama Housewife, 49 (2006), an adaptation of the diaries of Nella Last, and played the eponymous role of an introverted middle-aged character who discovers new confidence and friendships in Lancashire during the Second World War. Housewife, 49 was critically acclaimed, and Wood won BAFTAs for both her acting and writing for this drama - a rare double.

In November 2006, Wood directed a revival production of Acorn Antiques: The Musical! with a new cast. The musical opened at the Lowry in Salford in December and toured the United Kingdom from January to July 2007.

In January 2007, she appeared as herself in a series of advertisements featuring famous people working for the supermarket chain Asda. They featured Wood working in the bakery and introduced a catchphrase - "there's no place like ASDA". Wood was the subject of an episode of The South Bank Show in March 2007, and is the only woman to be the subject of two South Bank programmes (the previous occasion was in September 1996).

Wood appeared in a three-part travel documentary on BBC One called Victoria's Empire, in which she travelled around the world in search of the history, cultural impact and customs the British Empire placed on the parts of the world it ruled. She departed Victoria Station, London, for Calcutta, Hong Kong and Borneo in the first programme. In programme two she visited Ghana, Jamaica and Newfoundland and in the final programme, New Zealand, Australia and Zambia, finishing at the Victoria Falls.

In a tribute to Wood, the British television station UKTV Gold celebrated her work with a weekend marathon of programmes between 3 and 4 November 2007 featuring programmes such as Victoria Wood Live and Dinnerladies and Victoria Wood as Seen on TV - its first screening on British television since 1995.

Wood returned to stand-up comedy with a special performance for the celebratory show Happy Birthday BAFTA on 28 October 2007, alongside other household names. The programme was transmitted on ITV1 on Wednesday 7 November 2007. On Boxing Day 2007 she appeared as "Nana" in the Granada dramatisation of Noel Streatfeild's novel Ballet Shoes.

In December 2007, when a guest on the radio programme Desert Island Discs, Wood said she was about to make her first foray into film, writing a script described as a contemporary comedy about a middle-aged person. On Thursday, 12 June 2008, Wood was a member of the celebrity guest panel on the series The Apprentice: You're Fired! on BBC Two. In June 2009, she appeared as a panellist on the first two episodes of a series of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.

Wood returned to television comedy for a one-off Christmas sketch-show special, her first in nine years, Victoria Wood's Mid Life Christmas, transmitted on BBC One at 21:00 on Christmas Eve 2009. It reunited Wood with Julie Walters in Lark Pies to Cranchesterford, a spoof of BBC period dramas Lark Rise to Candleford, Little Dorrit and Cranford; a spoof documentary, Beyond the Marigolds, following Acorn Antiques star Bo Beaumont (Walters); highlights from the Mid Life Olympics 2009 with Wood as the commentator; parodies of personal injury advertisements; and a reprise of Wood's most famous song "The Ballad of Barry and Freda" ("Let's Do It"), performed as a musical number with tap-dancers and a band. Victoria Wood: Seen On TV, a 90-minute documentary looking back on her career, was broadcast on BBC Two on 21 December, whilst a behind-the-scenes special programme about Midlife Christmas, Victoria Wood: What Larks!, was broadcast on BBC One on 30 December.

2011-15

On New Year's Day 2011 Wood appeared in a BBC drama Eric and Ernie as Eric Morecambe's mother, Sadie Bartholomew.

For the 2011 Manchester International Festival, Wood wrote and directed That Day We Sang, a musical set in 1969 with flashbacks to 1929. It tells the story of a middle-aged couple who find love after meeting on a TV programme about a choir they both sang in 40 years previously. Although the characters are imaginary, the choir sang with the Hall Orchestra in Manchester's Free Trade Hall on a record that sold more than a million copies. Apart from the pieces on the 1929 recording (Purcell's "Nymphs and Shepherds" and the Evening Benediction from Hansel and Gretel) the score for the musical was written by Wood.

On 22 December 2012 Wood was a guest on BBC Radio Two's Saturday morning Graham Norton Show. On 23 December BBC One screened Loving Miss Hatto, a drama written by Wood about the life of concert pianist Joyce Hatto, the centre of a scandal over the authenticity of her recordings and her role in the hoax. In April 2013, Wood produced a documentary about the history of tea named Victoria Wood's Nice Cup of Tea. In 2013 she played retired constable-turned-security-guard Tracy in BBC Scotland's Case Histories starring Jason Isaacs. She appeared in an episode of QI, broadcast on 13 December 2013, and around the same time made two return appearances on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue during the show's 60th series. In March 2014, Wood voiced the TV advertisement for the tour of the old set of Coronation Street. On 5 December 2014 Wood was a guest on BBC's The Graham Norton Show. On 26 December 2014, a television adaptation of That Day We Sang, starring Michael Ball and Imelda Staunton, was shown on BBC Two.

In early 2015, Wood took part in a celebrity version of The Great British Bake Off for Comic Relief and was crowned Star Baker in her episode. She co-starred with Timothy Spall in Sky television's three-part television adaptation of Fungus the Bogeyman, which was first shown on 27, 28 & 29 December 2015, her last acting project and final role.

Awards and recognition

Wood received many awards in her career. In 1997, she was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the Queen's Birthday Honours List. Earlier in 1994, she was made an honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of Sunderland. She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours.

In 2003, she was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 Funniest Acts in British Comedy. In the 2005 Channel 4 poll the Comedians' Comedian, she was voted 27th out of the top 50 comedy acts by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. She was the highest-ranked woman on the list, above French and Saunders (who paid tribute to her in their Lord of the Rings spoof, where a map of Middle-Earth shows a forest called 'Victoria Wood'), Joan Rivers and Joyce Grenfell.

Her sketch show Victoria Wood as Seen on TV won BAFTA awards for its two series and Christmas Special. In 2007, she was nominated for and won the BAFTA awards for "Best Actress" and for "Best Single Drama" for her role in the British war-time drama Housewife, 49, in which she played the part of a housewife dominated by her moody husband. Wood's character eventually stands up to him and helps the WRVS (Women's Royal Voluntary Service) in their preparations for British soldiers.

Her popularity with the British public was confirmed when she won 'Best Stand-Up' and 'Best Sketch Show' by Radio Times readers in 2001. Wood was also voted 'Funniest Comedian' by the readers of Reader's Digest in 2005 and came eighth in ITV's poll of the public's 50 Greatest Stars, four places behind occasional co-star Julie Walters.

Wood was the recipient of six British Comedy Awards: Best stand-up live comedy performer (1990); Best female comedy performer (1995); WGGB Writer of the year (2000); Best live stand-up (2001); Outstanding achievement award (jointly awarded to Julie Walters) (2005); Best female TV comic (2011).

Wood was nominated for the 1991 Olivier Award for Best Entertainment for Victoria Wood Up West.

BAFTA nominations

Wood was a 14-time BAFTA TV Award nominee, winning four. She received a special BAFTA at a tribute evening in 2005.

Year	Award	Nominated work	Result
1986	Best Light Entertainment Performance	Victoria Wood as Seen on TV
1987	Best Light Entertainment Performance	Victoria Wood as Seen on TV
1988	Best Light Entertainment Performance	Victoria Wood as Seen on TV
1989	Best Light Entertainment Performance	An Audience With Victoria Wood
1990	Best Light Entertainment Performance	Victoria Wood
1995	Best Actress	Pat and Margaret
	Best Single Drama	Pat and Margaret
	Best Light Entertainment Performance	Victoria Wood: Live in Your Own Home
1999	Best Comedy Programme or Series	Dinnerladies
2000	Best Situation Comedy	Dinnerladies
2001	Best Comedy Programme or Series	Victoria Wood with All the Trimmings
2007	Best Actress	Housewife, 49
	Best Single Drama	Housewife, 49
2011	Best Single Drama	Eric and Ernie

• Victoria Wood as Seen on TV won the BAFTA for Best Entertainment Programme in 1986, 1987 and 1988; these awards went to the producer, Geoff Posner.
• An Audience With Victoria Wood won the BAFTA for Best Entertainment Programme in 1989; this award went to David G. Hillier.

Personal life

Wood married stage magician Geoffrey Durham in March 1980 and they had two children. They separated in October 2002, but continued to live near one another and were on good terms. Her son Henry made a cameo appearance as a teenager in Victoria Wood's Mid Life Christmas, listed in the show's closing credits between Jennie Dale and Steve Elias on the rolling credits. He also appeared in the accompanying 'behind the scenes' programme Victoria Wood: What Larks! where his credit was placed over a still photo of himself, taken from the video footage of the recording.

Wood attended Quaker meetings with her husband and was a vegetarian, once remarking, "I'm all for killing animals and turning them into handbags. I just don't want to have to eat them."

Death

Wood was diagnosed with terminal cancer in late 2015, but kept her illness private. She died on 20 April 2016 at her Highgate home, in the presence of her children and former husband.

Stand-up videos

• Sold Out (1992)
• Live in Your Own Home (31 October 1994)
• Live 1997 (27 October 1997)
• At the Albert Hall - Live (25 November 2002)