Victoria Wood

Victoria Wood is too alive and too productive to be talked of merely as an historic event, but it would a mistake to leave that aspect out, because modern television would be a lesser thing if she had not first broken down so many barriers. As a television dramatist alone, she is on a par with Alan Bennett, while as a creator of comedy programmes she changed the field for women and indeed for everybody, because very few of the men were trying hard enough as writers before she came on the scene and showed them what penetrating social humour should actually sound like. Above all, it should sound like an inside job. At her advent, the old framework in which Footlights graduates reported on the British social structure from above was at last outflanked, and a whole new intimacy began: often much more devastating, but always far less condescending. Such is her range, it is often easy to forget that her ability to write, and star in, a whole complex television drama is solidly based on the music-hall skills by which she can sell out the Albert Hall night after night and hold the audience enthralled on her own. When she kindly came to call, I raised these topics and others, including the recycling of household rubbish and the increasing prevalence of swearing on television – two themes that might well be closely related.