Her early songs are fantastic too:

I came out at a lesbians' ball
Didn't feel glad to be gay at all
Whoever said that - Tom Robinson was it?
I couldn't agree, and got back in the closet

Dinner ladies was pretty mainstream.
It is very easy to be disappointed by an comic "selling out" but its just a fact of life.
Sooner or later everyone mellows and looks for the easy bucks.
Remember her for her good material not this feeble crap.

From what I've seen of Dinnerladies I didn't think it was so bad. It goes without saying that is is well written but I think it was always going to be a little restricted by the claustrophobic setting. I mean how many jokes can you make about buns and runny egg?

dinnerladies was fab - the cast were a brilliant mix of big stars and newcomers, naturally Vicky's script was great, and the whole thing was just cool

Agreed - dinnerladies was OK - very good compared to most other recent UK sitcoms. Victoria Wood is a terrfic talent - possibly one of the best 'British' standups ever. Some of her material on 'An Audience with Victoria Wood' defines British characteristics and foibles as well as anything by Orwell. With the added bonus of jokes. Her series for the BBC (As Seen On TV) was one of its best ever sketch shows. She also produced a series of underrated comedy plays - the best of which is called 'Staying In' . She meets a horrific Bleasdale type writer at a posh dinner party who bewails the death of 'The North':
"It's The North - My North. And they're killing it. Killing it! They're killing my North!" "Where d'you live?"
"Chiswick."

Dinnerladies is crap - missed it first time round but have watched most of them on UK Gold, and it's a shame that a talented comedienne and writer like VW has taken the money and ran.

Still, the As Seen on TV stuff is timeless, especially the Patricia Routledge monologues.
"My mother gave birth to twins in an unheated wash-house then got up and finished the mangling, so think on!"

Genius. Maybe Dinnerladies is just a bad patch for her, and she'll return to her former glory someday. I hope so, anyway.

I think dinnerladies was a very good series. Genuinely.

(Ducks behind pillar for about five minutes).

If it had a fault it was that it didn't *look* right. The production was always a bit funny and sometimes gave the impression that the characters were -- well, actors in a sitcom, standing and saying their lines. The dialogue itself, however, was frequently nothing short of brilliant. Always proceeding from the kinds of things people might plausibly say, but then spiralling off into absurdist lapses and non-sequiturs. Compare it to the kind of lame pudding that usually results when some callow youth who knows the tricks of stand-up -- but precious little else -- gets a commission. VW understands how to set up a reality-base and then tweak it in other directions, rather than just dropping huge breezeblocks of surrealism in every time the realist approach doesn't seem to be going anywhere. I'm really not a fan of sitcom in general, but 'dinnerladies' worked. And she knew when to kill it off, too.

But yes, the 'Freda and Barry'-type songs were bloody awful.

No - the songs were classics

What about the cyan nylon one piece suits with the frilly shirts and the red bow ties?

>The dialogue itself, however, was frequently nothing short of brilliant. Always proceeding from the kinds of things people might plausibly say, but then spiralling off into absurdist lapses and non-sequiturs.

But that's precisely what it *didn't* do. It sounded like someone failing to do an impression of VW at her best (e.g. 'Pat & Margaret') or a lame Alan Bennett pastiche. For whatever reason, she was having to work hard to sound like herself, and it showed. 'dinnerladies' (and whose the hell idea was that 'cute' lower case 'd', anyway?) whiled away half an hour in that kind of zombified, 'Corrie' sort of way, but it honestly doesn't come near VW's early work. If she hadn't proved herself to be so joyously good in the past we wouldn't be nearly so miffed about this series being a bit limp.

>sound like herself, and it showed. 'dinnerladies' (and whose the hell idea was that 'cute' lower case 'd', anyway?)

Hers. My excuse in perpetuating it is... er, no. Sorry. It is withdrawn.

(name removed) and (name removed) write this website.

Yes, they do.

I still give her the benefit of the doubt. As Seen On TV had some superb stuff in it (yes Acorn Antiques, but what about those brilliant fly-on-the-wall docs - my favourite being Today In Hospital). That series of playlets - Al's spot on about Staying In, and that one about daytime TV was top-notch as well.

dinnerladies was not her finest work, I grant you, although in fairness, I've only seen bits here and there, and it sems a little slow compared to her best work (As Seen and Pat & Margaret, probably). Never mind, she's not doing anymore dl's anyway, so maybe there'll be a return to sketch shows, or maybe another film.




"Jones's Crisps!"



*lengthy pause*





"What's in them?"

For what it's worth, I think Victoria Wood is simply wonderful.

I went to the same school as Victoria Wood, and I think she's ace.

Well, to be more specific, I was at "the boy's school across the road" that they
shared the swimming pool with.

That's very Victoria Wood, actually.

Wahey! Someone who uses this site comes from the same place as me! (Assuming that Tim_e means Bury Grammar).
I'm so easily pleased.
Do you still live in Bury, Tim_e, or have you seen sense and moved far, far away?
I actually live just outside Bury, in Ramsbottom. Bit of a comedy place-name I know, but apparently it's got something to do with garlic, not sheeps' arses.
Sorry that this post has no real relevance to the thread, but I got a bit over-excited.
Erm, I quite like Victoria Wood, by the way.

>Wahey! Someone who uses this site comes from the same place as me! (Assuming that Tim_e means Bury Grammar).

Yup, indeed. I was posh in those days.

>I'm so easily pleased.

Hey, I'm happy just because someone's responded to one of my posts.

>Do you still live in Bury, Tim_e, or have you seen sense and moved far, far away?

I got away to Nottingham to go to Uni, and stayed there. I still visit occasionally though.

>I actually live just outside Bury, in Ramsbottom. Bit of a comedy place-name I know, but apparently it's got something to do with garlic, not sheeps' arses.

Valley of the Garlic. Nice.

'The Ballad Of Freda And Barry ' is actually a great little song but has become Victoria Wood's standard party piece. A guaranteed show-stopper as everyone knows it and feels safe with it. There are much better songs in her repertoire which deserve an airing every so often (such as the one which namechecks Tom Robinson mentioned above, or 'Bastards', mentioned in the Comedy Songs thread).

Has 'Lucky Bag' ever been released on CD? The studio-recorded song collection is a poor substitute.

don't know what it was called but she did a brilliant song once with the refrain 'I want to be everyone...' Which contained the immortal line 'I'd use my toaster with the ears of wheat on...' Now THAT'S observational comedy!