My apologies to any readers who are not familiar with British classic comedy. I've added a few links, and if you stick around, you can see a video of the talent and wickedly funny humanity we all lost to cancer in 2016...
Yesterday evening I noticed that Victoria Wood was trending on Twitter, so I clicked to find out why... and was so glad I did! Yesterday, on what would have been her 70th birthday, Twitter was awash with tributes, quotes and video clips of sketches, songs and interviews. And so I ended the week laughing uproariously, tears streaming down my face, at this glorious, wonderfully funny mélange, which was also a bittersweet reminder of the incomparable observational genius of her writing, and - quite simply - the amazingly talented and lovely woman who died seven years ago.
I was eleven when Victoria Wood first appeared on New Faces, and can still remember seeing her on That's Life, and watching her play, Talent on TV. Her comedy especially formed the backdrop to my twenties: I am part of a generation for whom Two Soups is as iconic as a different pen's Four Candles, Acorn Antiques was the perfect spoof of our mums' favourite soap opera, and the sight of a trolley - dessert or hostess - conjured up quotes and visions of Victoria's bright-eyed, impish grin. But more than that, there was the way in which she observed and encapsulated life - especially for women. Her gift for creating a full, rounded character with just a few lines of dialogue was unparalleled, as was the economy with which she used words. Not a single word was superfluous, and her use of brand names was spot-on: of course this character would prefer ginger nuts and that one gipsy creams; the two biscuits could not be interchangeable, and both they, and the characters, were rendered all the funnier because of it.
So much of comedy relies on misunderstanding, embarrassment and the puncturing of egos and dreams. Whether it's the pretensions of Keeping Up Appearances' Hyacinth being undermined by her uncouth family, or Basil Fawlty somehow being brought down by his snobbishness and schemes, we laugh at these as much as at Del-Boy's ill-fated attempts to become a millionaire - even as we long for something, just something, to go right for them. The falls and setbacks can be funny, but only if characters and storylines are written with kindness, empathy and redeeming qualities.
And this was where Victoria Wood excelled, because her writing, above all, was kind, and even her least likeable characters were never entirely unlikeable, and certainly not irredeemable.
But don't listen to me anymore - listen to Victoria! Here she is in a short stand-up routine from 2007, when she would have been forty-four, describing the signs of ageing. How many of them do you recognise, in yourself or others?
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