Victoria Wood As Seen on TV
| Victoria Wood as Seen on TV | |
|---|---|
Victoria Wood as Seen on TV opening titles
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| Genre | Comedy |
| Created by | Victoria Wood |
| Starring |
Victoria Wood Julie Walters Celia Imrie Duncan Preston Patricia Routledge Susie Blake Kenny Ireland |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of series | 2 |
| No. of episodes | 13 (including Christmas Special) (list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Geoff Posner |
| Running time | 30 minutes (per episode) |
| Release | |
| Original network | BBC Two |
| Picture format | 4:3 full screen |
| Original release | 11 January 1985 – 15 December 1987 |
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 (in which Walters, as an elderly waitress, takes far too long to deliver two bowls of soup) and regular features like Acorn Antiques (a parody of low-budget soap opera), as well as musical performances by Wood including her best-known number, The Ballad of Barry and Freda ("Let's Do It").
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 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.
Wood, having spent most of her television career before As Seen On TV with the opposition television station ITV, was lured to the BBC with a promise of bigger budgets and more creative control than on previous television shows, such as Wood and Walters.
To produce and direct the show, Wood chose Geoff Posner, who had previously worked on successful and acclaimed British comedy shows of the early 1980s such as Not The Nine O'Clock News, The Young Ones and the pilot of Blackadder. Equally impressed with her work, Posner said of Wood's gift for comedy, "She manages to examine people talking and capture speech-patterns and subjects that are everyday, but hysterical at the same time... it's quite unique to hold a mirror up to ordinary life and make it so special."
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