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

[TheNoWord]

Ten years ago we lost one of the funniest and smartest women, a true genius, a woman who really understood the reality of women’s lives, and wrote about it as both comedy and drama.

I find myself wondering what she would have made of the current gender madness?

"The perception of Wood as a ‘national treasure’, and her congenial onstage persona, often belied the darker aspects of her work. That this so often went unnoticed made it all the more potent"

Andrew Doyle has written a tribute:

https://www.andrewdoyle.org/p/the-genius-of-victoria-wood

We apologise to viewers in the north - it must be awful for you.
That character got some absolute gems.

I was fortunate to have seen her live several times, and most memorable was one routine where she was an aerobics/step instructor and she did the entire thing while also doing the step exercises. I’ve no idea how she had the breath to do it. It was a bit like a modern version of Joyce Grenfell doing her teacher “don’t do that George” thing.

The Ballad of Barry and Freda nearly caused a family feud the Christmas it was first broadcast in the late 80s, it was spectacular. One elderly relative thought it was disgusting and couldn’t understand why we were all on the floor laughing (including his sister and wife). Watching my normally very strait laced teetotal grandma and great uncle fall out was fantastic and my grandma uttered things I thought I’d never hear her say about her brother (and never did again). It was a Christmas that went down in legend. “Is Victoria Wood on?” became a family in joke for decades.

She was wonderful. Three generations would sit around the telly, howling with laughter.
I dated a fellow Southerner, who sneered at her saying she was too Northern and a bit common. We didn’t last!

Ooh that's a lovely tribute.

Andrew Doyle is bloody funny so it's really interesting seeing him analyse her talent lile that.

I love Victoria Wood and often watch clips from you tube of her - ‘national treasure’ feels like it misses how ‘punk’ she was, sharp, feminist, blunt, confrontational- she was amazing and a feminist trailblazer- the fact that she hid all of this in plain sight just shows what a genius she was! Very very missed. Thanks for posing the question

I’d like to imagine her doing a duet with Mr Menno 🤣

She was just brilliant. I loved her. I miss her.

I think mummy might be a little bit common, judging by the sun lounger.

I read an interview years ago with Maxine Peake and she said that Victoria Wood and told her to take on more serious roles after dinner ladies or she would be typecast as a fat northern woman for the rest of her career.

I would like to think that she would be posting i a similar vein to JKR.

I had some small dealings with VW and the cast of dinnerladies at a charity where I worked. They were all absolutely delightful and helpful. Duncan Preston phoned me up and was most personable and non- pretentious. I loved them all.

( The same cannot be said of many of the other celebs with whom I had contact)

I went to see Into the Woods at the weekend and I could swear the actress who played the witch, who was amazing, was channelling Mrs Overall at times. I shall have to rewatch dinner ladies now, so human and so funny.

There was a sketch in which Julie Walters played a makeup stylist in a dressing room, and the star of the sketch was the person the cameras were following, docu soap-style.

I can't recall things in detail but JW brings into the conversation something like "I WAS a man, up until 1985." The narrator off camera comes in with "Maybe they should make a show about you?"
She comes back with "Oh, they did. But when it was on it was up against 'The Generation Game'.* What chance did it have?"

(* Could have been 'Going for Gold' or similar - VW would have been very precise in her choice and I can't remember.)

May have been the cruise ship sketches, I think.

I don’t think she’d be posting about it. But I do think she’d know what was what!

“ On my wedding night I heard a cough and John stood in the doorway with his jamas off.
I said now John please do get dressed Iv’e seen one in a book and I was not impressed.

And her daughter can have three jumps of the wallaby like everyone else, I am not Fatima Whitbread.

Oh thanks so much for posting that Andrew Doyle article!
I miss her so much

Saw her on stage once - classic one liner: “My boyfriend had a sex manual but he was dyslexic. I was lying there and he was looking for my vinegar”

here are some interviews with her cast and colleagues (in the Guardian)

www.theguardian.com/stage/2026/apr/20/victoria-wood-julie-walters-dinnerladies-acorn-antiques

I like to imagine a sketch with a non-binary Twinkle-like character professing to be a they/them:

"Well seeing as there’s two of you one can wizz round with the pledge while the other one hoovers” 😉

I watched it with my teens and they didn't like it because it was so full of innuendo. That said, at the time it was made she said she wanted to make an old fashioned sitcom and even in the late 90s it did feel a bit old fashioned but the difference was the warmth in the writing and the character development.

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”

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.

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.

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 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)

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