What might Victoria Wood have made of today’s sex and gender debates?

The end of the "Millenium" episode of Dinner ladies when we hear the lyrics of the until-now mundane little theme tune for the first time...it still brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it. That woman was a genius.

Getting up, getting out, getting on, getting going,
Wears away at the dreams that you hold in your heart,
All the scared little choices you make without knowing,
Take away from the thing that you had at the start.

Day by day, drops of water wear the stone away,
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday…

She went to school with my dad, an absolute icon!

I loved dinnerladies too, but of course Maxine Peake is a massive TWAW, but, I suppose, a generation older than VW. A shame, cos I ran into MP once, and she was lovely, and friendly and chatty.

Gets me every single time…. and no tilting!!

I haven't got the pelvis for a futon.

I remember watching dinnerladies at the time it was aired but not seen it since. I found a 'best of' video on YouTube and I thought I was going to die laughing at "WHERE'S MY CLINT?"

Genius. Might have to hunt out the whole lot and watch it again. I do remember loving Celia Imrie as the well-meaning but completely clueless social worker-type character.

Anita: Is genitalia the shiny stuff you put on Christmas trees?

Bren: …pause… yes.

What will happen when it gets there and finds there’s nothing to pump up? Will it rebound to my heart?

Mine is the Viagra scene - buuut, wheeeere, will it gooooo?

Dinnerladies is my comfort programme I have watched it 100 times. This is my best ever set of lines in it!
Jean – It’s a load of codswash, dieting. All that misery for what? You could fall under a bus tomorrow.Dolly – I could. You wouldn’t fit under a bus, it would have to be jacked up.

Just sat and watched the Harley Bailey (Hurly Burly) sketch so funny.

Oh, I adore those Kitty monologues 😂

I think a 'Kitty' worldview or two is a sore loss to the 2020s!

'Are you intimidated by my sexual preferences? I said No, and I'm not too struck by your donkey jacket, either.'

(Edit for own shameless shoeing in of subsequent thought):
'Well, quite predictably he opened his raincoat. And there was a moment's silence, then I said 'Do you call that a lining?')

" Her and her bloomin' sex changes. I never know whether to get her to wash up or push start an Austin Montego".

Lost my amazing sister that year too, so many fab women I agree. Carrie Fisher, Caroline Aherne also.

That's what I mean, he didn't live in the era where TRAery was a thing. I'd have been gutted if he come down on the side of be kind and gender ideology but I can easily see a world in which he would, because a lot of his fanbase are minded that way. It would have completely wrecked all the brilliantly feminist characters he'd ever written (Granny and Nanny Ogg being the two that spring foremost to mind) but a lot of people (wrongly, IMO) believe that feminism has moved on to including TWs.

"Transvestites. Are you one? Are you married to one? Or maybe you just plain can't stand 'em. Call us now."

Duncan Preston channelling Richard Madeley in VW's All Day Breakfast.

I love Victoria Wood to pieces but I don't think she'd have weighed in on the gender debate other than to make jokes. I don't think she was a "feminist" per se - she had a very troubled relationship with her mother and a lot of her work is about unsympathetic women (and she tended to be quite sympathetic to her male characters though like Tony and Stan). Same with sexism. She was interested in the humour and hypocrisy of it rather than making a political point.

Better not to have found out really.

There have been so many disappointments.

I'm not sure what you mean about Pratchett as he died when the TRAs were in their infancy.
His daughter and some of his readership have put forward what they think would be his view, but many of his characters are feminist.

I also remember Linda Smith, a really funny woman who used to appear on r4 and died young, and think the same.

I think she'd had a conversation with someone else and came to the 'realisation' that her non-adherence to gender stereotypes meant 'non-binary'

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/showbiz-news/coronation-street-legend-shobna-gulati-31245671

(Reading that article makes my brain hurt..."they became a single parent" and the like just doesn't make any bloody sense)

Agreed. Shobna Gulati was very good in Dinnerladies, but I did puzzle why she needed to announce her sexuality to the world. I had made no assumptions in the first place.

I agree. Dinnerladies is one of my all time favs, and I would hate to not be able to watch it anymore or feel aggrieved that such a brilliant writer had "jumped on the bandwagon" ( or felt that she needed to, in order to avoid getting cancelled. )

I think Victoria Wood would have known what's what, as most of us who think for ourselves do, but might have been pressured into following the BeKind route in her statements and work. Which would have been really depressing.

I'm sad she's gone, with so much life ahead of her, but not sad to not have to find out where she would have ended up in this fiasco. So many writers and comedians have caved.

I agree with this. I'm sure quietly she'd have known what was what but so many were afraid to speak out. Who'd have though Jo Brand wouldn't have stood up for women's rights and yet there she was on HIGNFY trying to convince us all that a stridently feminist and established comedian couldn't possibly have put her head above the parapet.

I don't wish Victoria Wood away for one moment but there is a little bit of me that is almost relieved at not having to be disappointed. See also: Terry Pratchett; he knew exactly what was what with regards women's rights (as anyone who has read Equal Rites will know) but he'd have known that so large a percentage of his reader-base was full on TWAW.

And let's not forget that Shobna Gulati - who played Anita in dinnerladies - recently 'came out' as non-binary ( ) and has a Wikipedia page that's they/them-ed up to the eyeballs. There's a lot of pressure to lend support in those situations.

Lost my Mum in the same year too. We lost a few fab women that year.

I remember Victoria once saying she’d been asked if she was interested in setting up a women’s radio channel and she responded by saying “ I’ve been listening to the radio all my life - I didn’t realise I wasn’t supposed to”