Author:Victoria Wood,Victoria Wood,Rebecca Front
Rebecca Front presents this two-part look back at Victoria Wood’s stand-up and songs using her own archives and tapes – including never-before-heard material
Victoria Wood was a comedian, actress and all-round national treasure. She wrote and starred in countless sketches, plays, musicals, films and sitcoms over four decades, winning numerous awards, and her work remains timeless to this day. With her perceptive observational humour, she made the everyday and mundane hilarious – but how did she do it?
In this BBC Radio 4 documentary, Rebecca Front uses Victoria Wood’s personal rehearsal recordings, rare live performances and behind-the-scenes footage to reveal some of her comedy tricks and techniques. We hear about her instinctive sense of rhythm, amazing rhyming ability and unerring knack for finding the perfect word to make a sentence sing, and learn how she honed her unique talent to become one of Britain’s favourite funny women.
With unprecedented access to Victoria’s own boxes of battered cassette tapes, this programme is a shameless chance to hear some wonderful stand-up comedy, characters and songs, mixed with a look back at what made her so funny and so universally loved.
Executive Producer: Geoff Posner
Produced by David Tyler
A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4.
The King's choir's glory years under Ord and Willcocks are at the heart of Day's massive, impeccably researched book. Its scope, however, is far wider. ... The sound is a 20th-century British invention, which - because it coincided with the rise of broadcasting and recording - went on to conquer the world.
—— Richard Morrison , The TimesThis eye-opening - and ear-opening - book ... investigates the creation of a style, and the evolution of a tradition, that now feels as anciently English as the tentacular late-Gothic stonework of King's chapel itself. Along the way, Day's meticulous history of a special choral sound opens out into an exploration of the ever-shifting bonds between music and society, and art and faith.
—— Boyd Tonkin , Arts DeskMagisterial but extremely readable ... full of fascinating detail and shrewd insights
—— Clare Stevens , Choir & OrganUndoubtedly the definitive biography. Rudolf Nureyev, superstar, emerges in all his terribly flawed glory
—— Sunday TelegraphThe definitive study of a man who, in his combination of aesthetic grace and psychological grime, can truly be called a sacred monster
—— ObserverJulie Kavanagh writes with flair and abundance
—— The Sunday Times