In conversation with Julie Walters and Maxine Peake - "Victoria Wood was a true genius" | BFI

I was still I was at DRAM skills at Rada and I time with an aging something just as it was sort of a couple of months before I left everyone else had lots of agents not scrabbling over them and one edge and approached me I went well that will do so and then I got a call saying you've got an audition for a thing called in a lady's written by Victoria Wood and I just remember it didn't really sink in and I didn't even think I didn't think about getting it I just went all I'm going to see in the room is a toy ruled out exciting getting the job didn't seem sort of possible and that's why I never thought like that beginning I just thought oh I've got an audition that's good you know the possibility getting a job didn't didn't seem feasible but anyway so yeah I went in and I think what happened was I think my agent had suggested me and I draw added that it wasn't too sure because I've not done anything up so at drama school and the ademma South Bank Show which is a bit like a Victoria Wood spoof if you watch it I do look like one of those characters rather large at the time and very yard and got all it's great being here and it was about me being it rather saw the centred this so Frank Shaw and I think she went yeah she's ridiculous she'll do that was Sam I got the meeting and then I got to sit in a room with all these amazing people and that was a little bit much and actually the one not she said to me you northern don't be more northern and is what you mean she says relaxes from northern actors co-main and then the northern up even more because they've been a performer so I went I did the first audition and then I got a call and got a recall and a members going to the recall and Shona Galati was there and again I couldn't believe it and then we got chatting and then the next thing I got the job and I can't really remember much after that just sort of starting and yeah so that was it was it was a dream come true I'm not just saying it was Julie Walters I was looking at an interview and Victoria yes she told Michael Parkinson yes she told Michael Parkinson um one of the most generous things that you could say about anyone she said you gave her her voice she said Victoria I didn't know I actually never knew that she said at the bush theatre in 1978 you were peeing in glasses because the lobby was round the front yeah this is true true the dressing room with a fire escape at the back that was the treasure that had six of us in there so why would you want to show was up you couldn't go we try to do it once and we went in the interval to the toilet where all the audience were and you could we heard somebody saying something they weren't coming back for the second half so we never win yeah so it was and we had to pee because we couldn't go to the toilet we had septillion in these beer glasses we all had a few beers in those days didn't do it now but and it was always like that here's you wrote you wrote a love letter yeah of swords I kind of there was a professional kind of base for the love letter and I was working as a script editor at Granada and I took grown-up as just as a massive Victoria Wood fan like I had all her all her sketches all we had seen on TVs on on VHS as it was as it was then and I used to watch them again and again I had the books of the scripts for those shows and I just knew her work really really well and I felt that there was you know she was clearly someone who loved telling stories even even in sketch form and I was you know I was hoping that that I could get a show away with ITV and I wrote to Victorian our issue consider writing a long-form drama and to my great amazement she wrote back and said that she had got some drama ideas and she wasn't at a point where she was necessarily ready to share them but that we should meet up and we did and that's how we got to work together I think Victoria wrote all her character I think she went men brilliantly as well as women but she said she never understood Ben preferred to write women that's what she said I think there's being modest I think the thing that really stands out for me about about those that clip is just her incredible craft like you know Victoria would have sat and worked and worked and worked and most worked at those lines so that we landed brilliantly yeah and you can see that aren't you you can you can see that in her delivery it just she just lands alive yeah yeah and it's funny and it you know the choice of words is so exact yeah no absolutely it's like when we did when we were working on any of her scripts they were it was absolutely with other people script I was always be writing and changing things and terrible liberties but not with bigs and they were just so perfect anyway and you knew she wanted you to play every comic didn't she and every you know terrifying going onto dinner ladies but anyway you know on a live show but but yeah she did it so yeah it's like if they like songs almost yeah it's like music isn't it and if you hit okay you get the word wrong it's like a bomb no yeah yeah oh yeah yeah yeah it wasn't why was there so much sex in her out do you think I mean as an example she must be the only person in the history of British comedy who could rhyme halter necks with oral sex little bit obsessed with it like we all were then and I get you know L stuff at the menopause and so I have a drink here's do you think there was a lot of sex in it because that's what sex anyone tell me I think for me one is growing up in the 70s and 80s as you did men when they spoke about their sex it was always a woman who had a headache and in let's do it it was the man who couldn't perform didn't performance that's very subversive she'd have been whipped in cloudy Arabia well I think kind of two things I think she you know she was pioneering in the in her stand-up you know that there hadn't been a long tradition of an email stand-ups and Victoria was selling out the Albert Hall and doing the undoing these huge huge tours and men often made smarty jokes in stand-up and I think Victoria was just sort of saying well you know actually women apart of that conversation too and we can be funny about it as well yes oh I think that's that was that was kind of Benidorm maybe she and she were you ground it was it was real and honest well no that's what people respond to in let's do it just it's just putting sex you know on on a level in which it's experienced by most people which isn't this sort of you know well it isn't always heavy charge neurotic at often it is just you know it's normal part of life and I think I think putting on the hostess Charlie I seem to remember that no peers we see why he found another Victoria Maxine do you also think that there was weight if you want to know where where her world was as I was it was born in Guildford it was very much not Guildford you know the world the world of Victoria Wood to me was very female very funny and very northern I would have thought that that exclusi would just they happen to have most of Kara's happen to come from the north but it felt sort of universal yeah but people just reckon up throughout recognizes that was what a genius was that you know they were just people that everybody could recognize despite the accident despite that the sort of place where they you know yeah you think about Eric and Ernie which she she didn't write it but she starred as Eric's mum Sadie yeah a very poignant moment where Eric Saxa as the manager and I wonder do you agree with me that there was a melancholy under a lot of her comedy that some of these women were strong and funny but also they're a bit sad or had sad lives that had to overcome I think she she just wrote about life as she saw it really and you know for most people life is kind of saddened and funny and often sad moments have although hilarious moments within them you know and I think he just she just kind of saw yeah the truth in ordinary situations in mind them for comedy and and emotion and what do you all think that was the link between her comedy and her drama did she wish a comedian who always wanted to do straight writing Maxine what do you think I just Ascenta prefer I didn't even Zealanders that I wondered whether she'd I thought she started desire I don't know a long desire but I remember thinking during dinner ladies to do some serious acting and when I heard about house 4:14 I'm I'm rethinking brilliant she's she's doing it I just felt that and I think sometimes when you get labeled as one you know people you get labeled only get slightly pigeon holes I mean you know picture of the genius but so I think math that felt to me that the natural progression and something that maybe she felt she wanted but to get out of the system ensure she could do and I think the thing with comedians and especially a bit why she was so funny is because she was so truthful so she can be that truthful in a comic day and so full of empathy you know then if she takes that into straight acting and and it went to show you just roll the buster that I remember we've been obviously here evil I can't believe I did it and see no evil ed woman there was a thing I played Mayer Inlet that wasn't a comedy we I was with all the other ja froggit and Sean Harrison while coming and they could we were coming back uh suggesting when I did picture second act you form you know going around over the place and they could just one and I maybe she walked past enough just my mother brilliant and grab the cheese I remember being so operated then about sufferance what I just don't victory was cheeks almost like that like some more aunty yeah yeah I mean I just I was so pleased when she done when she born I just felt so proud of about that brilliant I think that's what so I thought Buster for straight acting would have made so much too early yeah yeah I think she was fascinated by acting and you and she was also someone who wanted to always wanted to create she had a huge huge he creative and she's unlike a lot of people wants image you know as seen on TV was massively successful in it to theory services on wanted to do something else she didn't just do it because it was you know everybody wanted to see it in English so she was massively creative and acting was another one another thing you know another way of expressing what was in here acting straight acting and she went on to you know she went on to direct yeah that day we sang I mean if you just list these listing achievements in the last ten years and shakin antics the musical you know that we sang house y49 you know executive producing era Pannonia she just was she was a true original and then and a kind of a true genius yeah how did she work did she write did you have lots of bits of things on the floor did she have lines and Diaries did she write things down she heard people say and thought that's funny you know quiches consomme all these things she was just like a sponge for yeah well then she did have a little book yes yeah he's like she heard things she brought I can remember it writing things down and as you said that you went to home and she would script with index cards but character as she did she'd usually sort of write a first draft and she wouldn't tend to show that to anyone and then she'd have another go at it and it was often at that point that she she might ask me to read it but she was she's quite she was quite read Aaron that she really liked input and she really liked notes and and not many writers or not all writers necessarily do or certainly not mine but but she you know she said you know I know that if I rewrite a script ten times it will just be ten times better and that you know that was her and she was so dedicated when she was doing dinner lady she used to stay up all night when you were doing the read-through week didn't she were writing rewriting rewriting and obsessively sort of you know perfecting gags and she did the same with housewife 49 and loving this hat oh you know and and that and that day we sang you know she'd she'd she'd write these characters and these scenes and it was actually it made my job very easy because that they would they were real those people had such life to them all you needed to do and then when the index cards came out was just when you were when you were putting them into the right order often and often it would just be about sort of moving a scene around in a script and and then it would it would it all fell into place and she was totally up for that and someone who'll it's grown-up memorizing you know memorizing her work it was it was you know I really did all the way through all the whole time that I knew her I never ever forgot you know what a huge dream come true it was I got to got to work with someone who lied who had idolized as you know as a young man you've talked about her incredible work ethic did you get the sense that as she was doing it she was enjoying what she was doing and also she was here now looking back on the career that we're looking back on do you think she'd look back satisfied and should be happy with it and I think she loved making stone I think I think you'd buy it yeah and she loved the process and she loved sort of on the film units that are working out it was good at their job and who wasn't good at their job and you know what anyone who was and I think she found writing tough because writing is hard one I did it recently described to me like pissing glass and like I think that's what it you know I think it really really if you love you're good yeah I really really have to work at it and sort of you know dig dig very deeply and and I think she'd be in I think should be we were saying before we came on she thrilled she'd be absolutely thrilled to have her work being discussed today and and and ended in a series of programs are going to come out starting next week on the BBC tribute programs and but I think the really frustrating thing for me is that she had there was so much more she wanted to do and and she did talk about that you know she talked about all the way through right up until the end work yeah exactly still had to tell Julie what do you think about constantly evolving yeah was she satisfied I don't think she's essentially ready satisfied no I don't see any creative person II really was looking back no doubt I'm satisfied that man I just think the NASA fatigue I didn't but selling out the Albert Hall I was looking at the shows and she's so happy in the encore she comes on and she and she said I think that she wanted to perform from a very young age to cheat she absolutely adore applause did she adore the fact that the Albert Hall she's all alone she sold the whole thing up did that matter to her do you think door did yeah gee it was amazing I was I used to say to her you nervous a man I've never known anybody like that and she's completely unique in that with this what she used to say mean did she say that to you she was excited usual for you you can see in yeah but she wasn't stupid she didn't have destructive nerves like 99.9% visit well we first met at the Bush as I say first of all and we've been there a couple of weeks rehearsing this in at the death thing and then we work in the cafe one day and and over my liver boil and chips which is what it said on the menu and she said I said we've met before and I thought she's Matt the gentleman yesterday no no a long time ago in 1971 I think it was and I said and she said Mr Pollyanna caiman and auditioned and you were a first because I was a so she stood insuring up in my leotard and tights showing all the auditionees in and that cracking jokes being awful I imagine anyways just and then this image came to me of this little girl shy girl throwing up in a bucket and that was that was fake being sick I'm being really not than she didn't get in well they've never been forgiven for that I told every every news outlet growing up later that she'd been tortured not popular then eventually I got the letter from the director of the now Metropolitan University of Manchester whatever for saying please and we're sorry she ate William I just thought I'd mention it again today she would be so delighted to have heard everybody everyone's words here tonight she would have just loved it well I di and dogs had to it's very hard if it just that it's incalculable that she's not you know the losses but it's amazing that what will it will live on and it will give them you know much joy to generations to come people still carry on discovering overs I think I think the best comment is in fact there's been real laughter listening [Applause]

Channel: BFI

Views: 214,692

Keywords: British Film Institute (Publisher), british, film, institute, films, movie, movies, BFI, Victoria Wood, comedy, Eric and Ernie, Dinner Ladies, TV, As Seen on TV, Julie Walters, Maxine Peake

Id: W5BeJHV4Ymc

Length: 17min 33sec (1053 seconds)

Published: Wed May 03 2017