Victoria Wood's Collaborators Recall Her Genius
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- Duncan Preston recalled driving Wood to work daily in his Saab after they were cast together, saying she 'insisted that you do everything exactly as it was written' and would repeat scenes until actors said 'the right words.'
- Nigel Planer first saw Wood perform at Cardiff's Chapter arts centre alongside poet John Dowie, describing her as 'confidently suburban and witty, with no swearing or violence' in a male-dominated standup scene.
- Sally Ann Triplett starred opposite Wood in Acorn Antiques: The Musical! at the Haymarket, where Wood shared the Mrs Overall role with Julie Walters and marked her curtain call with a distinctive bow to the right, left, then straight ahead.
- Jim Moir met Wood while playing Eric Morecambe's parents in the BBC drama Eric and Ernie; the pair bonded at a Morecambe hotel by doing impressions of other diners before they had ever spoken properly.
- Joanna Scanlan said Wood 'whispered' direction notes to her while filming Fungus the Bogeyman for Sky, adding she 'carried that belief with me ever since' and stayed in touch throughout Wood's cancer treatment.
- Andrew Dunn was cast in dinnerladies after correctly delivering a long, unpunctuated monologue fast — and noted Wood 'had to be coaxed to keep going' by husband Geoffrey Durham after the first series.
Why it matters: A decade on, the tributes underline how Wood's perfectionism — repeatedly rehearsing lines until they were 'right' and writing an overnight letter to a colleague whose workload she then doubled — shaped the discipline of British ensemble comedy. The fact that Triplett is opening Fourteen Again on 1 May at a venue now named the Victoria Wood theatre shows her catalogue is still generating new work, not just retrospectives.
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