Victoria Wood
Raymond Briggs' classic family story about smelly monsters, dangerous humans and what happens when the things that go bump in the night move in next door comes to life on Sky 1. Timothy Spall, Victoria Wood and Keeley Hawes star
An adaptation of Raymond Briggs' children's classic that mixes live action and CGI animation to follow the adventures of a family of green monsters who live in the slimy underground world of Bogeydom. Fungus and his wife Mildew suspect their son Mould is illicitly dabbling in human culture, sparking a family argument that sees the boy flee to the surface. Above ground in Daventry, Daryl Hedge's go-getting wife Wendy won't let him forget it that he is unemployed, while his daughter Lucy has fallen for a disagreeable older boy called Dean.
TV Film adaptation of Victoria Wood's hit musical set in Manchester in 1929 and 1969. When middle aged loners Tubby and Enid attend a reunion of the choir in which they sang as children, the music evokes powerful memories, leading them to realise they still have a chance to find happiness.
That Musical We Made is an honest and funny look at the making of a musical. Victoria Wood takes us behind the scenes of That Day We Sang, the film she wrote and directed, and also looks at the real events which inspired her story. She goes back to Manchester to find out about the original choir of the 1920s, and the children who sang on the record of Nymphs and Shepherds. And in between unpeeling the history and sharing the fun of the shoot, she tries to work out how a piece of writing can evolve. Victoria unpicks the process in an attempt to understand how what started as a straightforward account of a day in the life of a children's choir in 1929 ended up as a middle-aged love story about the power of music to reconnect lonely people and give them a second chance to fall in love.
Comedy legend Victoria Wood travels the globe to explore Britain's love affair with tea in a two part special on the little plant that changed the world.
The Talent Show Story is a British television documentary series about the history of British television talent shows. The series comprises five episodes and was broadcast on ITV from 7 January to 4 February 2012. It is narrated by Victoria Wood. It was co-produced by Shiver Productions and Thames.
Drama inspired by the true story of classical pianist Joyce Hatto. Victoria Wood's new strange-but-true drama about musical deception and enduring love
A bumper recollection of the BAFTA-winning comedienne's most recent TV treats, including the definitive costume drama Lark Pies to Cranchesterford, the Midlife Olympics, and the further adventures of Acorn Antiques star Bo Beaumont - alias Julie Walters.
Single drama telling the story of Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise's formative years, from child stars to national treasures. 'Big head, short legs' is Eric Bartholomew's first impression of Ernie Wiseman, but their friendship endures and, encouraged by his well-meaning but determined mother Sadie, Eric became the funny man to Ernie's 'feed'. After a successful stint in children's variety, they work their way up the ladder of live performance, but after a disastrous television debut in the series Running Wild, Morecambe and Wise learn to trust their own instincts and just make people laugh.
Family adventure based on Mary Norton's classic children's books about a race of tiny people who live under the floorboards, resourcefully surviving by borrowing bits and pieces from the large residents who dwell above. After being discovered by 'human beans', borrower Arrietty and her parents are forced to leave their home while attempting to evade the clutches of obsessive scientist Professor Mildeye.
Little Crackers is a series of Christmas short films featuring stars of British and Irish comedy.
Victoria Wood takes to the stage with an all female bill for a night of comedy in support of The British Heart Foundation to help raise awareness of heart disease in women.
This is the time of year when friends and family gather round the television to exchange the traditional greeting -“Don’t bother, there’s nothing on”. Well this Christmas join Victoria Wood for her ‘Mid Life Christmas’ featuring highlights from the Mid Life Olympics 2009, with the most unlikely sporting events and a dance number that brings together the killer combo of midriff bulge. Victoria then dons a bonnet and corset, for the popular costume drama Lark Pies to Cranchesterford, and revel in the further adventures of soap star Bo Beaumont played by long term collaborator Julie Walters. DVD extras include the searing in-depth documentary (!) ‘What larks!’
Victoria Wood delves into the making of her Mid-Life Christmas, with behind the scenes footage from sketches including Lark Pies to Cranchesterford and the Midlife Olympics. The making of Victoria Wood's Mid-Life Christmas.
An unusual explorer named Gum and his kindly niece adopt three orphans -- Pauline, Petrova and Posy -- and raise them as sisters in 1930s London. But the girls must fend for themselves when Gum doesn't return from one of his adventures. Together, they nurture their passions for acting, aviation and ballet in this charming TV adaptation of Noel Streatfield's novel.
Victoria's Empire is a three-part British travel series that was first broadcast on BBC One in 2007. It was fronted by comedienne and actress Victoria Wood. Wood travelled around the world in search of the history, cultural impact and customs which the British Empire placed on the parts of the world it ruled. The documentary was called Victoria's Empire after the presenter, as Wood herself is named after the ruler of the British Empire, Queen Victoria. Wood specifically looked at places named after the monarch. In total Wood visited nine countries: She departed from London Victoria station for: ⁕Programme One: Calcutta, Hong Kong and Borneo ⁕Programme Two: Ghana, Jamaica and Newfoundland, Canada ⁕Programme Three: New Zealand, Australia and Zambia, finishing at the Victoria Falls.
Downtrodden wife and mother Nella's life takes an unexpected turn for the better after she joins the Women's Voluntary Service office in Barrow-in-Furness during the Second World War. However, her new-found happiness is shattered when her son Cliff leaves to join the troops - provoking a painful confrontation with her husband Will.
Acorn Antiques: The Musical! is the all-singing, all-dancing and fully overalled stage version of the beloved TV spoof. The triumphant West End production brought together Julie Walters (Mrs Overall), Celia Imrie (Miss Babs) and Duncan Preston (Mr Clifford) - the original cast of the series. It was directed by Sir Trevor Nunn ("Les Miserables", "Woman in White", "Starlight Express") and written by Julie's understudy, the award-winning Victoria Wood. Filmed during the sell-out run at the beautiful Haymarket Theatre, the musical features an all-star supporting cast of Josie Lawrence, Neil Morrissey & Sally Ann Triplett.
Starring Victoria Wood, Julie Walters, Celia Imrie, Duncan Preston, with the snobby continuity announcer played by Susie Blake, Acorn Antiques was a mini soap opera set in a shop on the outskirts of Manchesterford. Viewers were gripped with the everyday dramas that beset Miss Babs (Celia Imrie), Berta (Victoria Wood) and the glamorous Mrs Overall (Julie Walters). Now each thrilling episode is available together for the first time on DVD, including "Babs and the Cup of Coffee", "Mrs Overall and her Apron" and the memorable classic "Berta coming through the Doorway". Re-live the drama as Mrs Overall serves up another batch of macaroons and Babs discusses the future of the shop. What will be this week's riveting cliff hanger? Will the set survive? Written by Victoria Wood, Acorn Antiques was Produced and Directed by Geoff Posner and first transmitted as part of Victoria Wood as Seen on TV… in January 1985.
Victoria Wood seen performing live at her sold-out show in the Albert Hall using her usual anecdotal humour and amusing songs to cheer the huge audience.
Victoria Wood presents the true story behind Britain's timeless comedy. Includes footage of the cast on location and incredible personal tales about the making of the series. Was Arthur Lowe really just like Captain Mainwaring? Why did the warden always end up in the water? And how did Corporal Jones find a bomb down his trousers? Find out why Dad's Army was the Queen Mother's favourite show.
The comedienne stars in this festive sketch show, alongside a host of celebrity guests.
Dinnerladies is a BBC sitcom written by and starring Victoria Wood that chronicles the antics of a group of workers in a canteen in the north of England. Bren tries to maintain a semblance of order in amongst the chaos, while dealing with the canteen supervisor, slightly sex-obsessed cancer sufferer Tony. Dolly and Jean are the bickering menopausal older women, always at odds but best friends beneath it all. Then there's thick-as-two-short-planks Anita, and the terminally uninterested Twinkle, more concerned with having a good time than anything else. Making up the motley crew are military man handyman Stan, all rules and regulations, and ditzy Philippa, who never seems to get anything right.
Over half a million people packed into over 200 venues throughout the country during 1997 to see her best show ever. This tour included an unprecedented fifteen night sell-out run at the Royal Albert Hall, which the media hailed as the best stand-up show of the decade. With her cheek, charm and dazzling wordplay, she reduced her audience to a state of delerium. Recorded during her record-breaking tour, Victoria Wood Live is your opportunity to see the queen of humour at her most brilliant.
Jailed for his reckless driving, rambunctious Mr. Toad has to escape from prison when his beloved Toad Hall comes under threat from the wily weasels, who plan to build a dog food factory on the very meadow sold to them by Toad himself. This fantastic roller-coaster ride of hilarious adventures was both written and directed by Terry Jones, who also plays the central role of Mr. Toad. Alongside three former Pythons are a gallery of well-known faces all bringing wit and wonder to a feast of colourful characters. An absolutely charming film to delight children and adults alike, The Wind in the Willows is a perfect updating of Kenneth Grahame’s well-loved children’s classic.
Unexpected events occur over a long weekend when Pat, a glamorous British born star of American soaps, returns home to plug her auto biography on television and meets, for the first time since they were teenagers, Margaret her plain, fat and frumpy younger sister. The meeting is painful for both sisters highlighting the vast differences in their lives and resurrecting painful memories of their unhappy childhood with their uncaring mother. The tabloid press smell a juicy story and a race ensues to trace the current whereabouts of the long lost errant mother...
Victoria Wood's All Day Breakfast is a 50-minute television comedy special, written by and starring comedian Victoria Wood. It was broadcast on BBC One on Christmas Day 1992.
A live performance of the comedienne from 1991. Starting out on the working mens' club circuit, Victoria Wood graduated to performing her one-woman act in the country's biggest theatres. This show at the Mayflower Theatre in Southampton features her usual mix of observational comedy and songs.
Julie Walters and Friends was a one-off comedy sketch show showcasing the talents of actress Julie Walters. Sketches were written by Walters' frequent collaborators, including Victoria Wood, Alan Bennett, Willy Russell and Alan Bleasdale. Walters portrayed new characters alongside roles she had previously been known for, including a monologue in which she appeared as Mrs Murray, her character from G.B.H, written by Bleasdale. The show was nominated for the Best Light Entertainment award at the 1992 BAFTAs.
Victoria Wood was a series of six one-off situation comedies written by and starring Victoria Wood in 1989, who took a break from sketches, two years after her very successful and award winning series Victoria Wood As Seen on TV. Wood appeared as "Victoria", a fictionalised version of herself, in all six episodes - in The Library it was said that she "worked in TV" and in Over To Pam characters appeared to recognise her celebrity and in the final episode, Staying In, she was taken to a party to perform as a comedienne and was expected to go through her stand-up 'routine'. Her character often broke the 'fourth wall' of TV and spoke directly to the camera, but not in every episode. Bored with the sketch format and with a yearning to recapture previous success as a playwright, Wood came up with six individual sitcoms as a compromise. She admitted to finding the writing difficult. Though Wood was written as the central character, other lead parts were written with specific actresses in mind, like Julie Walters and Una Stubbs. "I want people to like me and the people who play my friends, and not everybody else" she said. Screenonline says of the shows "Modest in ambition and scale but rich in wit and acuity, the six playlets showcase Wood's eye for human foibles and her distinctively eccentric characters.".
Victoria Wood As Seen On TV is a British comedy sketch series starring comedian Victoria Wood, with Julie Walters, Celia Imrie, Duncan Preston, Susie Blake and Patricia Routledge. The show was televised on BBC Two between 1985 and 1987 and included sketches that became famous in the United Kingdom; these included one-offs like Two Soups and regular features like Acorn Antiques, as well as musical performances by Wood including her most well-known number, The Ballad of Barry and Freda. The show was created when Wood was enticed away from rival television station ITV in 1984. She wrote the whole programme, and also the synopsis of it for listings magazine the Radio Times. The series has led to spin-off script books, video tapes and DVDs. The show won BAFTA Awards for all its episodes and, in 1996, it was awarded all-time Favourite Comedy Series by the BBC itself. Wood preferred to work with a regular repertory of actors she could trust. Since the show ended, she has occasionally revived aspects of it with these colleagues. A notable spin-off is Acorn Antiques, the West End musical.
A play by Victoria Wood. Frances is 28, single and happy, despite ritual interrogation from her family as to why she's not married. Then she meets Jim, and finds she has decisions to make.
Wood and Walters is a British BAFTA nominated comedy sketch show starring Julie Walters and Victoria Wood for Granada Television and written entirely by Wood. The show was short-lived, with just one pilot in 1981 and a series of seven shows in 1982.
A play by Victoria Wood. Maureen has been faithfully attending the slimmers' club for months. Now the weeks of endless crispbreads have paid off - but is her optimism misplaced? Sequel to Wood's earlier play Talent, featuring the same characters of lifelong friends Maureen and Julie.
A British comedy sketch show from 1975 featuring winners of the ATV talent show New Faces; made by ATV for the ITV network Designed to emulate the fast moving style of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, it featured Marti Caine, Lenny Henry, Victoria Wood, impressionist Aiden J Harvey and singer Trevor Chance. To help out with the first show was the more experienced TV personality Leslie Crowther. The Summer Show consisted of five, forty five minute specials on the subjects of "holidays", "health and strength","mystery and crime","kids", and "entertainment". The performers, who were paid £175 a week for their efforts, were encouraged to diversify. Thus it featured the unlikely sight of Wood and Crowther duetting and other thrown together combinations for songs, sketches and dances. Wood said of the experience "it was one of those really bad variety shows where they got the scripts out of other people's dustbins. It was just dreadful." She was told by costumers, who said she was too big for the costumes, "if only you'd lose two stone you could wear this of Anna Massey's" Wood immediately went back to the unemployment queue when it ended. Whereas the series was a springboard for other cast members. Caine got her own TV series and Henry joined The Black and White Minstrel Show. [1]
Victoria Wood's Secret List features more than 20 sketches from the comedian's vast array of work. The sketches - chosen by Victoria herself - were discovered on a list in one of her personal notebooks after her untimely death. With a career spanning more than 40 years and crossing every possible genre, Victoria has a back catalogue that's bulging with sublime comedy moments, and Victoria Wood's Secret List promises viewers a unique opportunity to see the very best bits of Victoria's work that she loved the most.
A look back at the life and work of one of Britain's greatest comediennes, featuring interviews with those who worked alongside Victoria.
