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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think that if Victoria Wood...

150 replies

tokyonambu · 27/09/2010 20:15

...wants people to trust her judgement on what is funny, she should try making some programmes that are, in fact, funny?

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Drusilla · 27/09/2010 21:14

Jennifer Saunders is another gone off the boil comedian who was rather good as a (fairly) straight actor (in Jam andJerusalem). IMHO.

DilysPrice · 27/09/2010 21:14

She's normally brilliant, but that thing last Christmas was OK at best and was roundly panned by people who usually love her- she should let it lie and move on.

thefirstmrsDeVere · 27/09/2010 21:15

I love Victoria Wood. I think she is really really funny.

BUT

I think she is one of the worst dressed women in show business. I hate her 'style'.

Mind you my hatred is probably based on watching her in re runs. All those horrible long line jackets with the sleeves pushed up and shirts with ties errrk.

Sorry Victoria but I am a huge fan of your work.

pointydog · 27/09/2010 21:15

quite the reverse, sim. Ayres always has been , always will be Dire. Major league.

pointydog · 27/09/2010 21:16

Good god, sim, did you actually think I qwas implying ayres was good?

That is preposterous.

tokyonambu · 27/09/2010 21:20

"I bloody love French and Saunders."

They turned up on stage for the McGarrigle/Wainright concert at the Albert Hall last December.

Kate McGarrigle was very obviously in her last few months, and indeed was dead shortly afterwards, and this was very obviously the last opportunity for Anna and Rufus and Martha to perform with her. Like Warren Zevon, she made it to her first grandchild's birth (premature: Martha gave a heartwarming thank-you to the NHS, and several people from the maternity unit were there). But she blessed us with a debut performance that tore your heart out with . If you're not weeping, you're not human.

Linda Peters (Thompson) was there, singing (she's at our left of the group signing harmony). Boy George wasn't a total train wreck. Guy Garvey was pretty good. Everyone knew it was Christmas, but it would be Kate's last.

Except fucking French and Saunders. They clearly had no idea who anyone was, why this all mattered (that's KATE AND ANNA MCGARRIGLE, that's LINDA THOMPSON, do you know who these people ARE?) and wittered on aimlessly, with everyone praying they'd just go away. Shameful. And shameless.

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daftpunk · 27/09/2010 21:20

You don't get very good looking comedians, male or female.

Male comedians look like Frankie Boyle/Peter Kay, and the women look like Victoria Wood.

I'm not sure why.

tokyonambu · 27/09/2010 21:26

By the way, if you need the biggest weep you're going to get from youtube:

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Pixel · 27/09/2010 21:26

Remind me. The Christmas special, was that the one with the spoof of Lark Rise to Candleford? Cos I loved that!

As for Pam Ayres, I got my mum tickets to see her live for her birthday this year. My stepdad wasn't that keen to go but ended up sitting there with tears of laughter streaming down his face.Smile

shockers · 27/09/2010 21:29

Jennifer Saunders has breast cancer Sad

I too think that the comedy of the 80's was of it's time... isn't most comedy 'of it's time' though? I still find her older stuff funny because she is one of the comediennes/ans that got me interested as a teenager.

I absolutely loved "Housewife 49" though. I have watched it at least 4 times and still feel moved by her relationship with her son.

nameymcnamechange · 27/09/2010 21:31

I've never heard of Kate McGarrigle so I doubt I'm going to get tearful watching her last performance or Martha Wainright singing about her on YouTube.

tokyonambu · 27/09/2010 21:31

"I've never heard of Kate McGarrigle"

Shock
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Aitch · 27/09/2010 21:32

watch the clip, namey.. you might be wrong.

nameymcnamechange · 27/09/2010 21:32

I think it is extremely hard for artists to accept that they have done their best work and move on and leave the spotlight for the younger generation.

David Bowie = case in point.

nameymcnamechange · 27/09/2010 21:33

Who is she? Why should I have heard of her?

Aitch · 27/09/2010 21:35

folky type, sister of anna, ex of loudon wainwright, mother of rufus and anna. all round good egg and ginormous elegant talent, even if you don't much like that kind of thing.

Aitch · 27/09/2010 21:35

not anna, martha. obv.

Vallhala · 27/09/2010 21:37

YANBU. I have never been able to see what's funny about Victoria Wood.

Now, Julie Walters, on the other hand, is very amusing, maybe because she's generally that bit more acerbic than Wood.

Aitch · 27/09/2010 21:38

but she's an actress. if she's being acerbic it's because someone's written her acerbic lines.

tokyonambu · 27/09/2010 21:39

"maybe because she's generally that bit more acerbic talented than Wood."

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nameymcnamechange · 27/09/2010 21:40

I see.

Aitch · 27/09/2010 21:40

nnnnnnnnnooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Shock

come on now, wood is talented.

southeastastra · 27/09/2010 21:41

why have you got it in so much for victoria? you don't like her we get it!

Vallhala · 27/09/2010 21:42

Aitch and Tokyo, I think you're both right! :)

tokyonambu · 27/09/2010 21:49

"wood is talented."

Yes, she is talented. Like plenty of other people on New Faces, she'd have had a career as a music hall comedian before the war, or in working men's clubs later. Because that's what New Faces was: a sort of open audition for the Wheel Tapper's and Shunter's club.

But that's all. So with some bloody good people around her, and very good producers and, you can't help thinking, script editors, she managed to make some good sketch shows and some OK, but incredibly dated (Dinner Ladies is a seventies show thirty years too late) sit-coms. Plenty of other people could have, but she actually did, and fair play to her. And she did some gentle stand-up, at which she was actually rather good.

But the more she thought she was "the talent" (and in that interview, by God, she thinks she's the talent), and the more people were unwilling to say "not good enough", and the more good people were unwilling to play second fiddle to her with mediocre material, the worse things got. You could call this "John Cleese disease". So she's left shouting "but I'm still funny!", with the whiff of formaldehyde everywhere.

Victor Lewis Smith once attacked a comedian, I forget which, for going through old scripts, crossing out "Wilson" and writing in "Blair". You get that feeling from Victoria Wood: it's forever 1975. Factory Canteens, eh? We all know about those, eh? Eh? Eh?

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