Victoria Wood
Victoria Wood
Victoria Wood CBEwas 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...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionComedian
Date of Birth19 May 1953
Life's not fair, is it? Some of us drink champagne in the fast lane, and some of us eat our sandwiches by the loose chippings on the A597.
Of course I don't want to go to a cocktail party...If I wanted to stand around with a load of people I don't know eating bits of cold toast I can get caught shoplifting and go to Holloway [women's prison].
For years I was an undiagnosed anorexic, suffering from a little-known variant of the disease, where, freakishly, the appetite turns in on itself and demands more and more food, forcing the sufferer to gain several stones in weight and wear men's V-necked pullovers. My condition has stabilised now, but I can never stray too far from cocoa-based products and I keep a small cracknel-type candy in my brassiere at all times. Fortunately, I wear a 'D' cup so there is plenty of room for sweetmeats...
I know I've got a degree. Why does that mean I have to spend my life with intellectuals? I've got a lifesaving certificate but I don't spend my evenings diving for a rubber brick with my pyjamas on.
All my friends started getting boyfriends, but I didn't want a boyfriend, I wanted a thirteen-colour biro.
I once went to one of those parties where everyone throws their car keys into the middle of the room. I don't know who got my moped, but I drove that Peugeot for years.
Last time I went Intercity there were a couple across the aisle having sex. Of course, this being a British train, nobody said anything. Then they finished, they both lit up a cigarette and this woman stood up and said, Excuse me, I think you'll find this is a non-smoking compartment.
Jogging is for people who aren't intelligent enough to watch television.
I've never understood the point of ecstasy. I think if I wanted to get dehydrated and jump about with a load of people I've never met before I could go to a Methodist barn dance.
I have stayed true to that first idea that people can have a day in their lives that is very important and if they can reconnect with that day, reconnect with the people they were then, they can suddenly revive their emotions.
In my 20s I was going round seeing agents who were patronising because I was fat and a girl, which was a double whammy. I knew what it was to feel out-of-the-loop.
Music enriches people's lives in the same way paintings and literature do. Everybody deserves that.
My mother, she didn't believe in praise. She'd never say anything was great. I think that's quite Northern, to not make people feel too good. I didn't mind if she was proud of me or not, it didn't bother me. I was never trying to please her.
I sometimes think that being widowed is God's way of telling you to come off the Pill.