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Victoria Wood (1989 TV series)

1989 British TV sitcom

Summary

1989 British TV sitcom

Field	Value
image	VictoriaWood1989.jpg
image_size	250
caption	Wood with Patricia Hodge and Jim Broadbent in a still from the episode 'Staying In'
runtime	30 minutes
creator	Victoria Wood
starring	{{plainlist
channel	BBC1
first_aired
last_aired
num_series	1
num_episodes	6
country	United Kingdom
language	English
producer	Geoff Posner
director	{{plainlist

Victoria Wood
Julie Walters
Lill Roughley
Anne Reid
Philip Lowrie
Susie Blake
Celia Imrie
Kevin Bishop
Geoff Posner}}

Victoria Wood (retitled Victoria Wood Presents from 2007 for its DVD release) is a series of six one-off situation comedies written by and starring Victoria Wood in 1989, who took a break from sketches, two years after her successful sketch series Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV. Wood appeared as a fictionalised version of herself in all six episodes; she was generally identified only as "Victoria", but in the first episode was also addressed as "Miss Wood". Her real-life career was occasionally a plot point: in "The Library", it was said that she "worked in TV", and in Over To Pam characters recognised her as a comedian, though two confused her with Dawn French. Most notably, in the final episode, Staying In, she was taken to a party to perform as a stand-up comedian. Her character sometimes broke the fourth wall of TV and spoke directly to the camera, but not in every episode.

Production

Bored with the sketch format and with a yearning to recapture her previous success as a playwright, Wood came up with six individual sitcoms as a compromise. She admitted to finding the writing difficult. Though Wood was written as the central character, other lead parts were written with specific actresses in mind, such as Julie Walters and Una Stubbs. She said of the characters, "I want people to like me and the people who play my friends, and not everybody else."

Unlike As Seen on TV, the show was not filmed in front of a studio audience, though the recordings were later played for an audience to record a laugh track. Wood regretted this decision as it deprived her of the "instant gratification" of an audience response, and described the filming as a "boring, diabolical and awful" experience.

Reception

The series was met with a mixed critical reception. The series started out with an impressive 13 million viewers tuning in, but by the next week dropped to 11 million. The Daily Express called the show "tiresome stuff", while the Daily Mirror said Wood's targets were "predictable and snobbish". Wood later acknowledged, "It wasn't as well written by me as it could have been, and I shouldn't have been in all the sketches." In retrospect, Screenonline was more positive in its review, saying, "Modest in ambition and scale but rich in wit and acuity, the six playlets showcase Wood's eye for human foibles and her distinctively eccentric characters."

Episode guide

Featuring: Julie Walters (Nicola); Lill Roughley (Lill); Liza Tarbuck (Dana); Meg Johnson (Connie); Anne Reid (Enid); Georgia Allen (Sallyanne); Selina Cadell (Judy); Bryan Burdon (Maintenance man); Rosalind March (Melanie Dickinson – girl on video); Peter Martin (Man in cafe).

Featuring: Anne Reid (Sheila); Carol MacReady (Madge – librarian); Richard Kane (John - assistant librarian); Philip Lowrie (Keith); David Henry (Richard); Danny O'Dea (Ted).

Featuring: Julie Walters (Pam); Kay Adshead (Lorraine); Meg Johnson (Saundra - Console Television receptionist); Shirley Cain (Marge); Julia St. John (Caroline); Hugh Lloyd (Jim); Margery Mason (Alma); Lill Roughley (Sue); William Osborne (Neil); Charubala Chokski (Dr. Rani Najitwar); Alison King (Canteen server).

Featuring: Julie Walters (Joyanne); Una Stubbs (Una); Lill Roughley (Barbara); Philip Lowrie (John); Jane Horrocks (Kathy); Celia Imrie (Carol - SunSeaKing rep); Tristram Wymark (Guy); Susie Blake (Girl at check-in desk); Rosalind March (Woman in car); Valerie Minifie (Woman in lift); Peter Martin (Man on travelator); Joe Fraser (Spanish waiter); Rory Bremner (Radio voices), David Jacobs (Voice of David Jacobs), Duncan Preston (Voice of Captain Lewis), Graham Seed (Other radio voices).

Featuring: Celia Imrie (Jackie); Siân Thomas (Girl on farm); Michael Lumsden (Jamie); Avril Angers (Mim); Michael Nightingale (Daddy); Joan Sims (Susan).

Featuring: Patricia Hodge (Moira); Deborah Grant (Jane); Phyllis Calvert (Hilary); Lill Roughley (Dulcie); Roger Brierley (Gerald); John Nettleton (Charles); Jim Broadbent (Alan); Bryan Burdon (Jim); Celia Imrie (Woman on TV/Julia/TV soundtrack female voice); Susie Blake (Judith); Richard Lintern (Kevin); Dawn Archibald (Ailsa); Susan Leong (Filipino waitress); Peter Goodwright (TV soundtrack male voices).

Home media

VHS and DVDs

Format	Title	Release date	Label	Notes
VHS	Mens Sana in Thingummy Doodah	7 September 1992	BBC Video	Also includes the episodes The Library and Over to Pam.
VHS	We'd Quite Like to Apologise	1993	BBC Video	Also includes the episodes Val de Ree (Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha) and Staying In.
DVD	Victoria Wood Presents	21 May 2007	2 Entertain	Retitled. Includes all 6 episodes.
DVD	Victoria Wood Presents	18 October 2010	2 Entertain	Includes all 6 episodes on one disc, part of the 7-disc box set The Victoria Wood Collection.
DVD	Victoria Wood Presents	17 October 2016	2 Entertain	Includes all 6 episodes on one disc, part of the re-release of the 7-disc box set The Victoria Wood Collection.

Script collection

Front cover of ''Mens Sana in Thingummy Doodah'' (Methuen, 1991).

On 13 September 1990, the scripts of all six shows were published by Methuen London as Mens Sana in Thingummy Doodah, and Other Nuggets of Homely Fun. The book is dedicated "To all the Old Bags in Equity, most of whom were in the series". The book contains a preface by Wood about what it's like to make a TV programme:

References

(2007). "Museum TV – Victoria Wood". Museum TV.
Brandwood, Neil. (2002). "Victoria Wood: The Biography". [[Virgin Books]].
(2007). "Screenonline – Victoria Wood (1989)". Screenonline Online.
Wood, Victoria. (1991). "Mens Sana in Thingummy Doodah". Methuen London.

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

bbc-television-sitcoms 1989-british-television-series-debuts 1989-british-television-series-endings 1980s-british-television-sketch-shows television-shows-written-by-victoria-wood british-english-language-television-shows

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