Wood, Victoria

Wood, Victoria (1953- ), British comedienne, writer, and lyricist, with a gift for downbeat, observational humour. She was born in Ramsbottom, Lancashire, daughter of an insurance underwriter and a teacher. She studied drama at the University of Birmingham and in 1974 appeared on the New Faces talent show, winning a prize. But her career failed to take off until 1978 when she met the actress Julie Walters while preparing a revue at the Bush Theatre in West London.

Wood’s first play, Talent, written for Walters, was premiered at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre in 1978. It was bought by the ITV company Granada and was followed by their show Wood and Walters (1981-1982), in which they performed, together and separately, songs and sketches written by Wood. The humour, wry and self-deprecating, often played off Wood’s dumpy, incapable persona against the more glamorous Walters. Though Wood always wrote from a specifically female angle, the humour poked fun as much at women as at men, and was never aggressive.

Switching to the BBC, Wood launched a more ambitious show, Victoria Wood, As Seen on TV (1985-1986); the cast regulars included Walters, Patricia Routledge, and Celia Imrie. Each show featured an episode of a spoof based on the Crossroads soap opera, called “Acorn Antiques”, which Wood later turned into a successful West End musical (2005). There followed Victoria Wood (1989), Victoria Wood’s All-Day Breakfast (1992), and Victoria Wood, Live in Your Own Home (1994). Wood and Walters starred together in Wood's television film Pat and Margaret (1994) as estranged sisters, one drab and stay-at-home, the other a fading Hollywood star, and also in Wood's television situation comedy series dinnerladies (1998-2000). In 2006 Wood wrote and acted in the ITV wartime drama Housewife, 49, for which she received two television BAFTAs (Best Actress, Best Single Drama). Wood’s material still mines the same mock-naive vein, but has increased in sophistication over the years. In between her television programmes she often goes on tour with her one-woman show.