Victoria Wood

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.
(c)2019 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2019 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Victoria Wood (Author)
Victoria Wood was a hugely popular comedian, actress, singer/songwriter and director. She first came to fame on the TV talent show New Faces, and went on to appear in many television shows including Victoria Wood - As Seen on TV, An Audience with Victoria Wood, Pat and Margaret, Dinnerladies and the ITV film Housewife, 49. She won four BAFTA Awards and six British Comedy Awards, and in 2008 was awarded a CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours. She died in 2016.