Victoria Wood

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand seven.

Presenter0:28

My castaway this week is Victoria Wood, writer, actress, composer and stand-up comedian. She says Comedy is about whether people like you or not. If that is indeed the case, then she is positively adored, with twenty-five years of sell-out tours, smash-its, stage shows and successful sitcoms to her credit. But more recently her career has changed direction. She wrote and starred in an award-winning drama about a Lancashire housewife during World War Two.

Presenter0:53

A poignant story of domestic disharmony, isolation, and a desire for freedom.

Presenter0:58

Although it was far from autobiographical, it held strong resonances with her own background. Can we start then with Housewife 49? Can we start back to front?

Victoria Wood1:06

Yeah.

Presenter1:07

The two BAFTAs in one night, quite a coup. Quite heavy to carry.

Presenter1:13

Why did you decide to take on something that was so different from what you were very well known for?

Victoria Wood1:16

Well, I didn't do it specifically to be different. I was very uh attracted to the diary of Nella Last, which was published in the early eighties after she died. And when I was asked to to do something for Granada, I thought, oh, maybe this would make a good make a good drama, I thought.

Presenter1:33

And Nella asked the character, Can you explain a little bit more about her?

Victoria Wood1:36

She was a middle-aged housewife. She was 49. At the start of the war, she had what was obviously, or was seemingly obviously, difficult marriage. They were a little bit estranged. Her husband was very buttoned up. She says, actually, in the diary, that they don't sleep together, they sleep in separate rooms. And at the beginning of the war, it seems like her life has almost come to a close. She's had one nervous breakdown. She's worried that she might have another. And yet, the war liberates her. Obviously, that wasn't Hitler's purpose in invading Poland and liberating La Las. But I think it was liberating for a lot of women at that time who didn't expect to do anything other than look after their husband.

Presenter2:09

So the huge success that that it brought you I mean, you've described yourself intriguingly in the past as a sort of shy show off. Or on the night as you elegantly took to the stage in your blue gown and held those bapters to your breast.

Victoria Wood2:23

Treading on the hem on the way.

Presenter2:25

Nobody noticed. That sort of attention, it's a lot of attention, and you were on the front page of the newspapers and everybody was talking about it.

Victoria Wood2:31

And everybody

Victoria Wood2:33

Yes.

Presenter2:33

Are you are you comfortable with that sort of attention?

Victoria Wood2:35

Yeah, I was very happy with that. Yeah, yes, obviously you go into television or show businesses because you like attention. I don't want to pretend I don't enjoy it. I was really happy to be on the front page of the newspapers with my two BAFTAs and then the next day I didn't think about it. But I was very happy that night to have won for that show. It's just a nod to say that you did achieve something. Tell me about your first piece of music. My first piece of music is my hero, Randy Newman, who I think writes such brilliant, beautiful music. In fact, I stopped writing songs a few years ago because he had written so such good songs. I thought really, as long as he's writing really good songs, I don't need to write any songs. His songs are much better than mine. And I stopped for a bit, and I only started writing again when I was writing a musical. So I just find him very moving. And although he can write very complicated tunes, this song Marie is very, very simple.

Speaker 23:33

Maybe I could tell you

Speaker 23:36

What you mean to me?

Speaker 23:41

I loved you the first time.

Speaker 23:46

I saw you.

Speaker 23:51

And I always will love you, Marie.

Presenter3:57

Randy Newman and Marie, will you be crying on this island much? That's

Victoria Wood4:00

Oh yes, I'm always crying.

Presenter4:02

It's a very sad song I mean it's a beautiful song, a poignant song.

Victoria Wood4:04

Point.

Presenter4:05

Let's talk a little then about your childhood. I hinted in the introduction that

Presenter4:10

The exploration of isolation and families who don't really talk to each other and don't spend much time round the table being happy might have had some.

Victoria Wood4:15

Yeah.

Victoria Wood4:17

Yeah.

Victoria Wood4:18

Might have

Presenter4:19

significance with your own background. It was a an unusual family upbringing.

Victoria Wood4:23

Well I suppose it was. From the age of five I lived in a massive bungalow on the top of a hill on the moors on the Rossendale Valley, a house that had been an anti-aircraft base that my mother had partitioned at random with pieces of plywood. She had actually done it. Yes, she did herself by dragging bits of plywood off bomb sites and lashing them to the top of a minivan and driving them home and making rooms out of them. So it had lots and lots of rooms which meant we could all be there were four of us, four children, we could all have separate rooms, which is perhaps our mother's intention, I don't know. But after a certain point we never really we never really sat around the table. I had a room that had a piano in a and a television and books which is really all I needed and you know I used to bring food in and that was it and we were just all on our own.

Presenter5:07

You say bring food in. Was food not made? I mean, we used to be.

Victoria Wood5:09

No, food wasn't made. After a certain point I used to make my own food and just just take things in a jolly well I ate all the time'cause I had a huge eating problem. So I used to eat, you know, from the minute I got out of school really to when I went to bed.

Presenter5:22

Obviously, children, as they're being brought up, and what is normal to them is what they do every day. I mean, were you conscious that this was an unusual setup?

Victoria Wood5:29

Yeah, I was. I was. I used to go to other people's houses. I was amazed that the you know, that the house wasn't full of junk like our house was absolutely crammed with books and things that my mother would get off bombsites and things that she would buy from second hand shops and she didn't like housework which I absolutely don't blame her for. So it wasn't a spick and span sort of house. She was obsessed with reading and I was obsessed with reading.

Presenter5:49

Uh

Victoria Wood5:50

Did you have friends round? Do you guys no, no. We never, never, ever had any visitors at all.

Presenter5:51

Do you guys know?

Presenter5:56

So the hoarding of everything, most importantly books, had an enormous impression upon you.

Victoria Wood6:00

Yeah, I was an obsessive reader. More than an obsessive eater, I think. I did reading more than anything. I couldn't really bear to be.

Victoria Wood6:09

to be conscious with air to book. I'm not so bad now, I can actually, you know, look people in the eye and have a life, but for years it was it was very much print based. I mean, at best it sounds like an eccentric s set up. At worst it sounds miserable. It wasn't miserable.

Presenter6:23

It wasn't m

Victoria Wood6:24

But it was quite isolated and it it didn't help me learn to get on with people really. My mother was very depressed and didn't really want to talk, but my father really loved working and was out working all the time. If he wasn't working he was in the house writing, and their interest was not in not in their children really.

Presenter6:41

I was going to ask you why was your mother depressed? And I don't even know if that's a sensible question. Sometimes people just are depressed.

Victoria Wood6:46

No, I think she'd she'd moved from a from a normal busy street to this rather windswept, bleak house and I think she couldn't quite extricate herself. She couldn't say, Actually, we've made a mistake and I think I think she I looking back now, I think she was depressed for a lot of the time when I was a child. And did she ever talk to you about your eating? I mean, obviously we never talked about anything.

Presenter7:05

There was no

Speaker 17:07

Yeah

Victoria Wood7:09

No, no, no, no.'Cause she she had an eating problem as well, I'm quite sure. She was always on a diet all the time or o or overeating, one of the two.

Presenter7:18

Yeah.

Victoria Wood7:18

Yeah.

Presenter7:18

And when you were very young then, did did you go to the theatre? Did you see

Victoria Wood7:22

No, we didn't go to the theatre very often. I went a lot later.

Presenter7:23

No.

Victoria Wood7:26

But I did once see I saw Joyce Grenfell when I was about six or seven and I remember her very, very clearly. That made a huge impression on me that she was not just a woman, but she was standing alone on the stage. And she came out and she said, I'll give you a minute to decide if my dress is leaf green or lettuce green. Oh my God, who is this? And my sisters went round to see her backstage. My mother said, You can't go, you're too small. And she came out. She came out to find me and said, Is this Vicky? I've never ever forgotten her coming out to see me. And I well, if ever I do a show, I always, always go to the stage door and I wait until everybody's had an autograph and everybody's said what they want to say because I think it's really, really important.

Presenter8:07

Tell me about your next piece of music, then.

Victoria Wood8:09

My next piece of music is Weather Report. It's Birdland, and it's not the version that most people know. It's the live version, which my son decided we should pick that of the two versions. And Birdland is great because you can sing along to it and it's very jolly.

Presenter8:53

Weather Report and Birdland, the live version. Your son will be pleased that it was the live version. So at school, you I mean you were a smart little school girl. You got on well in in primary school.

Speaker 28:56

Your son will be

Victoria Wood8:57

Yes, yes.

Victoria Wood9:03

Yeah. I went to primary school. Yeah, I was very clever. Yeah, I was always top of the class then. But then I couldn't I couldn't deal with when I went to grammar school that everybody was as clever. I couldn't deal with that and I really, really just went under and didn't do anything. I didn't do any work. I didn't have clean clothes. I didn't wash. I was supposed to make my unpacked lunches. I didn't make them. Couldn't do my homework. If I hadn't done it, steal somebody else's. I didn't have any monies to steal money from people. And it was just a mess. It was a big mess. And I'm not blaming my parents particularly. I just couldn't deal with the things I was asked to do.

Presenter9:38

Given that you I mean as far as I understand it you were not the class clown you never had an odd

Victoria Wood9:41

No, I wasn't at all, no. No. Didn't even have any friends, let alone try and be funny. No, I wasn't at all. Sometimes I would write things and read them out, that was all. But I was a bit of a miss

Presenter9:51

Yeah.

Victoria Wood9:51

Yeah.

Presenter9:51

Did you watch I mean, classes always do have a clone. Did you watch the class clone and enjoy their act, or did you think I could I could be funnier than that?

Victoria Wood9:58

I think that I was very I was sort of envious of all these groups of people that were in a group, you know, there was a horsey group and a and the girls that went out with boys and there were the clever ones and I d I did a lot of observing. I mean the good thing about being isolated is you get a really good look at what goes on. And in parallel with this you were still reading all the time though? All the time, yeah, reading and reading and reading and writing and um and working at the piano and I was doing a lot of other things ri when I look back now that actually did help me develop as a performer.

Presenter10:27

When did you start playing the piano?

Victoria Wood10:29

I started when I was about seven. My father wrote the names of the notes on the keys with pencil, on the piano keys, and then he wrote the names of the notes of the tune of Polly Wally Doodle with pencil on the music. And then he j when then he left the room typically. And uh and I just worked I worked it out and then I was utterly obsessed. Then that was my next thing I was obsessed with. I was obsessed with the piano and worked it all out until I could play.

Presenter10:52

What do you think now as a it appears to me a sort of balanced, evolved adult?

Victoria Wood10:58

Yes. Looking back at that little girl who was sorry. I feel really sorry for her, that's all. You know, I don't want to make it sound like I had an absolutely terrible childhood. I absolutely didn't. And I'm, you know, I'm fine. But I think

Presenter10:59

Yeah.

Presenter11:00

That's already so.

Victoria Wood11:10

I think she was neglected, really, looking back at her.

Presenter11:14

And so the key to your happiness came when you were in your mid teens and you started at a a youth theatre. Thank the Lord.

Victoria Wood11:20

Rochdale Council. Yeah, I went my sister was at school in Rochdale and they had a youth theatre workshop modelled on the on the theatre workshop and modelled on the other, you know, the National Youth Theatre. And I went when I was fifteen and then it was like the sun came out.

Presenter11:22

Yeah, I went I

Presenter11:33

What happened? You thought I'm surrounded by my kind of people, or you thought I'm doing it.

Victoria Wood11:36

Just thought I'm in the right place, I know what I'm doing. Which when you haven't known what you're doing and you've always been you know, people rather despise you for always being in the wrong place or having the wrong socks or not having a name tape on your shirt, to suddenly be somewhere where your personality is of value, it's just fantastic. I just remember that I just felt comfortable on the stage, that more comfortable than I did off it.

Presenter11:59

And how did that progress then? I mean, w you went to the youth theatre and did you think, well, my future lies here? Were you brave enough to think that?

Victoria Wood12:05

Brave enough to think that? Yeah, I did. I mean, because although I'm talking about myself, it was as if I was very chaotic. I was, but inside I had a very, very serious streak of ambition and a very, very serious belief in myself. Actually, if that doesn't sound too conceited, I'm trying to be honest. I did always feel I was very good at something and that I could be very good at being funny. That's what I always felt. And when I sat on my own in this strange house with nobody else around at the piano, I would twist round as if to an audience and do, you know, try and write funny things and play funny things.

Presenter12:40

Tell me about your next piece of music.

Victoria Wood12:41

My next piece of music is um the violinist Guillaume Kramer playing a piece by Astor Piazzola because I love tango music, I love violin music, so I'm trying to combine two things in one because I can only choose eight records and this is called uh Soledad and it just it lowers my heart rate, that's why I play it because it makes me feel relaxed when I hear it.

Presenter13:30

Guidon Kremer and Soledad. It's very interesting that you say that you you blossomed so much when you reached youth theatre. And you decided you wanted to go then to drama school. Yeah, I did. I did. I mean, you auditioned for a few different places. Is it is it true that you

Victoria Wood13:43

You met Julie Walters at one of the other.

Presenter13:45

I please.

Victoria Wood13:47

Manchester Polly, and I was so nervous. I was just sick. I was sick as a dog the whole day through. And one of the students showing people in and out of rooms with a clipboard was this really odd-looking, very small girl with very small eyes and tons of brown hair, who was really funny. And then that was the end of the story. I didn't get into Manchester Polly and I didn't know who she was. And then seven years later, I was in a meeting about doing a review at the Shepherd's Bush Theatre, and there was another girl there with a lot of dark hair and really small eyes and being very funny. And we got talking and suddenly did this massive double take. And I'd always thought about her, I'd thought about her in the intervening seven years, and I don't know, just clicked really.

Presenter14:31

We'll talk more about Julie Walters and your association.

Presenter14:34

She's had plenty

Presenter14:36

So you didn't go to drama school because you didn't go to you went to university. Yeah.

Victoria Wood14:38

I didn't go in.

Victoria Wood14:41

Yeah, to study drama.

Presenter14:42

Right.

Victoria Wood14:43

Yeah. And it wasn't a huge success? It wasn't for me, because I did the same thing as I'd done when I got to grammar school. I got there, and all I could see were a sort of blur of very tall, slim, blonde girls from the home counties. And, you know, they were talking about Stanislavski and Jerzy Grotowski. It just sounded like people sneezing. I didn't know what was going on. And instead of saying, Excuse me, you know, could you tell me where the library is, could you tell me who Jerzy Grotowski is? I just went and et really and hid away and didn't do any work or anything. I got the worst degree you can get and still call it a degree, really. How did you look as a teenager?

Speaker 114:58

But what?

Victoria Wood15:13

Um, I probably didn't look as bad as I thought I looked. I can't tell you what I looked like'cause I didn't look at myself because I had, you know I don't know if I'm body dysmorphic, I just really had a really bad body, I don't know. So you preferred not to look at yourself? I didn't look at myself really. I wasn't

Presenter15:19

The hand.

Presenter15:25

Yeah.

Victoria Wood15:28

I just, you know, I liked to wear, you know, big chunky boots and big coats and I had a load of hair and little round glasses. I felt okay, actually. I felt okay.

Presenter15:36

And when you were twenty you auditioned for New Faces.

Victoria Wood15:39

That was my that was my other side, you see. The other side was ticking

Presenter15:39

Do those

Victoria Wood15:42

It's intriguing.

Speaker 115:42

Uh

Victoria Wood15:45

For someone who didn't really seem to have a lot of bottle, I did really show quite a lot of um initiative. I wrote a play and I took it to B B C at Pebble Mill, I auditioned at Pebble Mill and I auditioned for New Faces, which was a massive, massive talent show at the time, nineteen seventy three.

Victoria Wood16:00

And turned up at a nightclub with about 5,000 people standing on the pavement and went an audition, which I think is quite brave. What was your act?

Victoria Wood16:07

Well, it wasn't it doesn't really deserve the word act. It was a few songs. Um it was just I just used to write little topical songs and that was that was all I could do really. I mean it was shocking really.

Presenter16:19

Yeah.

Victoria Wood16:19

And were you acting the parts when you were in the middle of the day? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, just sat and sang at the piano. That's all I did.

Presenter16:21

No, no, no, no, no.

Victoria Wood16:24

It took me a few years to progress to standing up. You know, after a few years I got so I could have just a radio mic and nothing in my hands and no piano and nothing. And then I felt I'd reached, you know, achieved something to make it that simple. Tell me about your next piece of music then. My next piece of music is Mr Scruff, who I'd never heard of'cause, you know, I'm very old and don't really, you know, don't you know, can't really tell the white stripes from the black and white minstrels. But my son, luckily, being fifteen, is very uh

Victoria Wood16:51

To the Minute with pop music and he said, Oh, I think you'd really like this and he he he put it on my uh on my iPod and it's Mr. Scruff and my favorite track, Getta Move On.

Speaker 217:23

Keep moving boys, your bad keep moving

Speaker 217:26

Or you'll be left behind

Presenter17:30

Mr Scruff and get a move on. During the late seventies then you you formed two hugely significant relationships, partnerships, firstly with Geoffrey Durham, who went on to be your husband. You were together for twenty six years, and also Juliet Walters, who we will talk about whether you like it or not. But first of all

Speaker 117:40

Yeah.

Victoria Wood17:47

Yeah.

Presenter17:48

First of all, to to Geoffrey, what what was it that was so special about meeting him? What happened?

Victoria Wood17:50

Was it the

Victoria Wood17:52

Um

Victoria Wood17:54

I met him he was an actor at the Phoenix Theatre in Leicester, and I was asked to be the musical director of a show he was in playing Buffalo Bill.

Victoria Wood18:04

I can't really explain it was just one of those things. It was just one of those things where you click.

Presenter18:08

And you said that he was a great source of strength to you. I mean, was that professionally?

Victoria Wood18:10

Was that professionally? Yeah, in every way really. But particularly he was encouraging because I think comedy is a very difficult thing to do without somebody in your corner, because it's really lonely to have somebody with you who says, oh, that was good, that didn't work, that was great. You know, hopefully I helped him as much as he helped me, but I don't think it would have worked as well without him. And we just did everything together.

Victoria Wood18:35

What about, I mean, is there a formula to writing comedy? No, there isn't. I mean,

Victoria Wood18:42

But I know when I I know when I

Victoria Wood18:44

Did it and it took me it took me from 1974 to 1978 to work out how you actually wrote a joke. And then when I wrote a joke, I thought, ah, ha ha, this is how you write a joke. You can remember the day. Yeah, because I was writing a sketch for the show I mentioned at the Bush Theatre with Julie Walters and I just suddenly found the way that you constructed a sentence so that people would have to respond with a laugh at the end. And there's a very fine line between something that's quite funny, quite amusing, and might provoke a smile, and something that actually lands and gets a laugh. And once you find that, you're sort of home-free, really.

Speaker 118:57

Yeah.

Presenter19:19

Can you describe it to us or is that like a message?

Victoria Wood19:21

I wouldn't even if I could because I think y you know, people don't need to see the wheels go around.

Presenter19:26

There are brilliant comedy writers. They're few and far between, but there are.

Victoria Wood19:28

They're few and far between, but

Presenter19:31

There are hardly any brilliant comedy writers who are also brilliant comedy performers. Did did you feel very strongly that the words had to be said by?

Victoria Wood19:38

Yeah.

Victoria Wood19:40

No, I didn't I didn't feel that everything I wrote had to be done by me, but then I did want to be on the stage myself'cause it it's more interesting. You know, I don't want I don't want to just hand things over to people'cause I like I like the doing of it as much as the writing of it.

Presenter19:54

I mean one person of course that you have been famous for handing your work over to and who has made an extraordinary job of it is Julie Walters. So you met her properly towards the end of the seventies, 1978.

Victoria Wood19:59

So you met her.

Victoria Wood20:01

Yeah.

Victoria Wood20:02

Yeah.

Presenter20:04

And you started to work together.

Victoria Wood20:05

Well, we did that sketch show together, and I wrote a stage play, which she wasn't in, because she was in another theatre, and that was my first play, Talent. And then when Talent was bought by Granada Television, Julie auditioned to play the main part in that play, and she got the part. And after that, we did lots of things together.

Presenter20:24

Did you feel, having those two people on either side of you, that you were more able to be brave and try things out? Were they almost sort of like your stabilizers, or or or would you have done what you had done anyway?

Victoria Wood20:34

I don't know if I would have done what I did without Jeff. I don't know whether I would have been.

Victoria Wood20:40

A standard comedian without him.

Victoria Wood20:44

Tell me about your next piece of music. My next piece of music is Tom Waits, and it sounds like it's going to be very gloomy. It's called Misery is the River of the World. And I get a lot of the music that I know from listening to the radio sort of late night, and this was one I'd heard. But I just love this. It makes me laugh, even though it's so gloomy.

Presenter20:45

Boman

Speaker 220:45

Uh

Speaker 121:02

To win the beach folk.

Speaker 121:04

But it always comes roaring back again.

Speaker 121:09

Blisser is the river of the world.

Speaker 121:18

The broadcast.

Presenter21:32

Tom Waits and Misery is the river of the world, and as you say, curiously jolly song of a

Victoria Wood21:36

No, love your voice. You don't feel as if you living on oval team.

Presenter21:41

And so

Presenter21:42

You've gone on, or you went on, to to make I mean, T V Goldust really, they must have just been delighted to to welcome you in through the doors of Television Centre and Granada and whatever. They never said that. They I mean Wood and Walters, Victoria Wood has seen on T V, that spawned Acorn Antiques, you have Dinner Ladies Two.

Victoria Wood21:52

Yeah.

Presenter22:00

Did they treat you well? I mean, uh, as you were churning out all these hits?

Victoria Wood22:03

They didn't really take much notice. I mean, that was all right. I mean, that that's the good thing, is that they leave you alone to do what you want, or they used to. It's not really quite the same now, where you have to sort of battle with about twenty two ladies in nice suits telling you what they think comedy's about. But then people did leave you alone. So they although they didn't seem to be particularly appreciative.

Presenter22:20

And all these programmes have the hallmark of acutely observed human behaviour. That's sort of at the root of what I suppose so.

Victoria Wood22:28

I suppose so, yeah. But, you know, I can't I can't sort that. I don't do it I don't do it deliberately. I don't go around looking. I don't go around with a notebook. Do you not? No, I don't. Some people do though, don't they? Yeah, they do. I I've got a notebook, there's nothing in it really.

Presenter22:36

Do you not?

Presenter22:38

People do though, don't they, some people?

Victoria Wood22:41

No, shopping list.

Presenter22:45

As well as your T V work then, you did continue to do the stand-up. How how different an experience? Well, the stand-up was a bit

Victoria Wood22:50

Well, the standard was a big thing and it was the thing I concentrated on much more than anything else. I mean, I do base it in truth, and I do I do try and be honest in a in a sense. I don't I mean, I try and come from a a point of view of reality, but, you know, it in the end it is two hours of lies.

Victoria Wood23:09

You know, that's comedy.

Presenter23:12

Are there particular areas though that you think that completely is out of bounds? I'm just never gonna talk about it. I'm never gonna talk about my kids, or I'm never gonna talk about what my house looks like or

Victoria Wood23:22

Um, sometimes I do. I do. I've talked about my kids a little tiny bit, but only so that I can get into talking about kids generally.

Victoria Wood23:31

But I think you you you try and pick on the things that you think are a common experience.

Presenter23:35

And is it difficult to reveal parts of yourself on stage? I mean, when you do that, is there a complexity in in making laughter out of your own?

Victoria Wood23:42

No, not if it's something like, you know, you cut bits of your pubic hair off with the nail scissors. I don't mind saying that. I don't mind people knowing that about me, but I would hate anybody to see my tea towels actually.

Presenter23:53

Tell me about your next piece of music then.

Victoria Wood23:55

My next piece of music, this is my happy music, and I didn't even know who this was. Somebody burnt me this CD and I had to ask who the act was. I didn't know it was the Doobie Brothers, because I know this track as a warm-up track when we did Acon Artiques the Musical in the West End two years ago and we used to do a warm-up at the start of the day's rehearsal and this was the first track on the warm-up tape and I absolutely love it.

Speaker 224:19

He came from somewhere back in how long ago

Speaker 224:24

Set up and the food don't see Trying hard to recreate but get yet to be created

Speaker 224:32

Once in her life, she musters a smile For his nostalgic tears.

Speaker 224:40

Never coming near what you wanted to say Or it to realize

Presenter24:47

The Doobie Brothers and What a Fool Believes. You made a fascinating documentary a few years back about uh the i the dieting industry and dieting in general. Quite a brave thing to do. I mean, although lots of women struggle with weight, very few people would actually go on T V and talk about it openly.

Speaker 224:55

Yeah, you're not.

Victoria Wood25:03

No, I was I was quite happy to talk about that. I'm very, very anti the dieting industry because I think they exploit people's insecurities and also they don't deliver what they promise. It's it's an industry based on predicting failure.

Presenter25:17

And you had been a consumer of dieting fraudulent.

Victoria Wood25:19

Dieting pills. Very assiduous consumer of ev of everything, yeah. Diet pil I was on diet pills when I was twelve, thirteen, and then I used to buy those terrible things that look like custard creams that you were supposed to have for your lunch. How very good that's gonna be.

Presenter25:33

You said you were on diet pills when you were twelve. Y had your mother Your mother took me to the doctor, yeah.

Victoria Wood25:34

Well yeah

Victoria Wood25:36

Yeah, yeah.

Victoria Wood25:38

She was on them as well. We were we were all on them, but I think they were like Speed.

Victoria Wood25:41

Yeah, I did a lot. I did a lot. I was always always obsessing about fat and weight food. Could I have this? Could I not have that? I mean, it went on for I still have it now, it doesn't ever go away, but it's not as bad now.

Presenter25:51

And when did you realize that that was just not a way that you behaved, but did in fact potentially have a name and was a problem?

Victoria Wood25:58

Well, not till not till I was about forty. I don't think all I all I thought of it as was a weight problem, that I had a weight problem that was too heavy. I didn't actually see that it was a terrible obsession and that I was using using food as as a drug and as a distraction, as an avoidance, as you know, sort of self-medication. I didn't really I didn't really I was a bit thick actually, not not really examining what it was.

Presenter26:22

And was it further complicated for you by the fact that obviously your image was on things? You were looking back at yourself more often than many women might have been.

Victoria Wood26:26

Was on thing.

Victoria Wood26:29

Yeah, that was a

Victoria Wood26:31

I always found that a difficulty about that whole thing, about being fat, because I just felt ashamed about it. I see bigger girls now wearing wonderful things, whereas my instinct was, oh, well, I'm you know, I have to just wear a big old suit, that's all I can do. So, how did you deal with it in the end? Well, I don't know that I do deal with it really. I think it's a bit more difficult. Well, you can think better than you used to. I deal with it better than I used to, because I know what I'm doing. And so, it takes up a much smaller part of my conscious day. Tell me about your next piece of music, then. Well.

Presenter26:49

Well you can do it better than you used to.

Victoria Wood27:01

This is one of my favourite composers. This is Arvo part, and I haven't just chucked this in to show that I know about classical music, but I do love a lot of classical music. This is something that I used to play when I went through a very bad time a few years ago, and it was the first time I really realized that music could express things that you perhaps couldn't express yourself verbally, or sometimes it would almost take away the feeling that you had. And so I would lie there and I would be feeling quite numb because I was miserable, and yet there was a sort of release in the music.

Presenter28:30

Part of Arvo Pert's Tabula Rasa, performed by Guidon Kramer, Tatiana Grignenko, and Alfred Schnitke with the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Soljus Sondenkits. You were saying that that music, in a way, took you through those periods of numbness. Yes. And you'd had this long and very fruitful marriage. You were together for 26 years. Yeah, yes. Something like that, yeah.

Victoria Wood28:44

Yeah.

Speaker 128:45

Nonetheless, yeah.

Victoria Wood28:51

Yes.

Victoria Wood28:52

Yeah.

Presenter28:52

Yeah. And it was that that made you depressed, the ending of that.

Speaker 128:54

Yeah.

Victoria Wood28:54

They have

Victoria Wood28:56

Yeah.

Victoria Wood28:57

But I felt like one of those cartoon people that steps over a cliff, really.

Victoria Wood29:01

you know, their legs are moving and then s there's nothing there's nothing underneath.

Victoria Wood29:05

You know, twenty six years is a long time.

Victoria Wood29:08

Your landscape.

Victoria Wood29:09

changes suddenly. I find that very difficult.

Presenter29:12

And I've heard you talk before and be very straightforward about the fact that you're somebody who's had therapy. And who I mean, how helpful has that been to you in your periods of depression? Because of course, as the British are incredibly sceptical about the usefulness of that.

Victoria Wood29:25

Well, at least you know you're not boring somebody, or if you are boring them, at least they're getting 75 quid, so you don't feel so inhibited. I did it during that time of my marriage break-up a lot, because I found it very comforting to talk to a therapist who had talked to lots and lots of people. You know, it's a very banal thing when your marriage breaks up. It's very, very common. And I did find that a bit of a help to think, you know, that there was a process and people do come through the other side.

Presenter29:49

And what about the ongoing process of real life? Because of course even when when a marriage breaks down, if you've got kids they still have to have breakfast made for them and taken to school and

Victoria Wood29:55

It's still

Victoria Wood29:56

Have breakfast made for them and taken to school and also I wrote a musical, which probably wouldn't work for everybody who's married to breakfast, but actually I found that a very joyful thing to do, which is odd because I felt so crummy and the first thing I did was wr write a lot of very jolly music.

Presenter30:13

And this was the Acorn Antiques music, which was a fantastically bizarre sort of romp.

Victoria Wood30:14

Yeah.

Victoria Wood30:20

I don't really know why I did it. I've had a huge amount of pleasure out of it. Hopefully other people have had as well. I suppose I was drawn to that world of the musical where the you know the lights are on and we've all got lipstick on and we're tap dancing and the band's playing. I I adore that world anyway and it was a great way to be in the theatre without having to be on stage myself as a comedian. I could never have talked about my marriage on on stage. I just couldn't have done it and wouldn't do it and it's you know why would you inflict that on people? But I could write something. It was I wanted it to be like a little sort of sweetie box really and just say look here you know here's some fun. I'm going to put some fun on the stage.

Presenter30:57

You did end up appearing in a secular

Victoria Wood30:59

I did because dear old dame Julie Walters didn't feel she could quite manage eight shows a week at her great age. So I said I would do her Monday nights and her Wednesday matinees because it it really is a hell of a job doing eight shows a week. So I did I did two of her shows as Mrs. Overall which was which was fantastic because I didn't have to carry the whole show. What are you writing now? Are you writing that? I'll be writing from next week and I've done this, I've to get this out of the way. Yeah, I'll be writing a film. I don't know if it'll ever get made but I'm going to write it. About what? I can't really tell you that because if you if you start talking about something it t it does die on you unfortunately and I'd I'd rather write than talk really.

Presenter31:36

Can you give us a hint though? I mean, is it going to be more in the area of what we saw in Housewife 49? Is it more serious?

Victoria Wood31:42

Yeah, but it's no, it's it will be a comedy, I suppose. It'll have more comedy in than Housewife did and less wigs and less war. It'd be con it'd be contemporary comedy.

Victoria Wood31:53

Are you gonna

Presenter31:53

To be announced.

Victoria Wood31:54

Yeah.

Victoria Wood31:55

Yeah. Yeah, hopefully. Yeah.

Presenter31:56

Not gonna tell me anything else.

Victoria Wood31:58

Well it's just about it's just about life now, really.

Presenter32:01

Yeah.

Presenter32:02

So the life, what of a a a woman?

Victoria Wood32:03

Yeah.

Presenter32:04

Yeah.

Victoria Wood32:04

Uh

Presenter32:04

Yeah.

Victoria Wood32:05

Yeah.

Presenter32:05

Yeah. Why are you laughing? Don't know'cause I'm sorry. Good.

Presenter32:10

Yeah.

Presenter32:11

Tell me about your next piece of music.

Victoria Wood32:12

Well, my next piece of music is the Clare College Singers doing a carol, I think orchestrated and conducted by John Rutter. And I adore Christmas music. In fact, that's the best bit of Christmas to me, is the music. I like the music and making the cake, really, those are my high points. After that, really, not bother as long as there's a bit of chocolate and some tell you. And another reason I've picked this one is that my daughter is going to go to Clare College next year and she's going to sing. So I'm really, really hoping, of course, that she ends up on a Christmas T V and that really would make my year.

Speaker 232:45

Done this feel so long.

Speaker 232:54

His sweet butterflies.

Presenter33:15

The Clare College Singers and Orchestra conducted by John Rutter and the Shepherd's Pipe Carol. So I will give you the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare. What other book would you like to take?

Victoria Wood33:22

What are the

Victoria Wood33:24

Well, probably a cliché, I know, on this, but it would have to be Dickens, who I never managed to get on with, and I'd have no choice but on a desert island to have to really get stuck in. And he does write such nice big books. Do you think you'd be fine on a desert island? Yes, I would be. I'd be too fine, actually, because I'm, you know, I'd I've a tendency to isolate myself, so it'd probably be the worst place for me. I'd much be better off you put me in a shopping centre. And what would your luxury be on this island? I'd like a bumper book of Sudoku.

Victoria Wood33:54

But they would have to have blank pages, every other page would have to be blank, and a nice black pen. So I could write if I wanted to, because I don't do workings out in Sudoku, I do it all over my head. So that's what I like. Thank you.

Presenter34:05

I'm going to force you to choose one of these eight now. Which one, if you could only take one, which one would it be?

Victoria Wood34:09

Um I think it would be the Doobie Brothers. What a fool br

Presenter34:13

believes'cause that just makes me smile.

Presenter34:15

Victoria would thank you very much for letting us give your desert island discs and Merry Christmas. Thank you very much. Merry Christmas to you.

Presenter34:28

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.