Victoria Wood interview (Dawn French, 2006)

[Music] fanastic was there not a human in your household when you wreck it no well my father was quite funny my mother always friends became tough no sense achievement whatsoever what something was true learning so I was I was the funny one out of the four of us I used to pull faces that's what I was good at my mother say go and pull as one of your faces and I'd go in the back kitchen and think of a face and come like a bullock impressions of Pinot Noir think about so I'll do that for funny faces a funny face okay said poor funny faces to order in fact yes what yes really I mean I did overdo it off they would laugh hilarious that meant was yeah and so were you tempted to perform inside the family for the brothers and sisters too no we lived in the house we were in separate rooms so we didn't we didn't interact at all I had a room with the television and a piano in it the focus just didn't on my own I mean that we didn't eat together after certain points in our family life billion oh no we did everything separately okay and you say you dad was funny well yes my Anna Mary would say my dad paid canon wrote music and wrote songs and wrote radio plays and and was funny radio plays that were on the radio yeah yeah hmmm so you often shared this family oh yeah it wasn't insurance Kelderman but he was a in spare time he wrote and when you went to school to junior school were you encouraged to be anything of a performer not at well not at all at junior school no I was fairly quiet I was just one of those I was on the clever ones and as senior school did only athenaeus school I did things like I wrote funny things from tongues and read them out but I was not the class clown and I didn't attract a lot of attention to myself I could only really do it through writing and later on to acting and were you in a group of girls did you ever know a gal and I was outside again I looked very enviously upon gangs and groups and wanted to be in the one I was never in one until later did you not try to insert yourself into a gang I did try I mean I tried too hard in that way that the never work and I had you know other Lane friends who was trying to do the same thing that when he didn't really want to be friends with but they were just available because they had calipers or plastered over their glasses or something and I was fat so I was in the losers group really so not at all using the humor to attract people to you there no no I didn't I didn't have that ability to to attract at any I didn't want to attract attention in lots of ways but secretly I did but I didn't know how you did it and I was always very admiring of various girls that were funny and I would say now that they're still funny in that they were funnier than I was at the time who did you laugh at when you were growing up can you remember I can't really remember except I watched everything that was ever on the television that was the comedy so I think I just laughed everything I mean I can remember Lucille Ball like I'm under silver silvers but I don't remember anything particular that I liked about them I think I just like the fact that it was comedy and I would only go to the cinema if it was a comedy and my purse would get the paper on a Friday night and go through the silvers and I would say is it a comedy is it a comedy as a comedy and if it wasn't I wouldn't go I was just very very drawn they were watching things like Jerry Lewis yeah comedy movie comedy movies okay yeah and do you remember any women in it particularly the two women I remember very well one was Lily Morris who I think is Canadian who was on the television she had a thing that's called a one-woman show my single on earth is that a one-woman show and then the other person I did see live on stage was disgruntled when I was about six I was taken round to meet her at the end of the show where are you I remember that very very well I remember the she remember some of the lines I remember very well the fact that she was just standing on stage on her own I've never seen anybody do that before I'd been to pantomimes and they've been to plays have never seen one person sign on the stage on their own and she came on and she said I'll give you a moment to decide with my dresses leafgreen or lady scream and she looked at the audience unit outward it's quality not quantity so our MPs I think was in Buxton and at the end of the show my sister said they wanted to go run and see her mildly it was a strange thing to do my mother my mother said oh you can't go cuz you're too little till we waited outside and she came out and she said oh is this Vicki I named the time and she came back to her let's me and I never ever forgot it did you love the show yeah I loved it yes I loved the fact that she was she she was peopling the stage with nothing but but words and that you because you could see those children that were doing awful things George don't do that I could see all that happening in front of me but really she was an inspiration she actually was an inspiration not just because she was good but because it put the idea in my head of a woman selling on stage on her own and that was a very very powerful image and I think that really informed what I did later I've got only about query going my mind at the moment about whether comedy of a subtle slightly whether it's a proper job well I think it would be a very thin way to live if there were no comedians and I think they're very they're very life enhancer when they're good and it's a very important part of the way we live is to have it celebrated in comedy yeah and I guess we always have had comedians we've paid jesters to kind of supplement it or any different things rather say yeah is that that only thing yeah but we haven't quite rewarded them in the way that comedians now seem to have a sort of like networking role status then there's big fashion for comedy yeah there is a fashion but I think it is just fashion then it will it will fade away well you seem to be slightly out of fiber thing always all the way along you manage to escape the alternative thing you ask about it too old I was would always be alternative but you were being alternative if I understand okay yeah I just wasn't in that I wasn't in that group I was like three or four years ahead yeah yeah but you managed to not be branded as anything now exactly used you know just sail right through the middle why do I don't think we're just baffled I think when I first arrived because people always like to label you and they didn't know they didn't know what to make of me and also I wasn't very good so I don't I don't blame them for their Battlement really there is no label for it and then eventually people just like it for what it is and they don't worry about what it is yeah and of course now virtually all the people we've spoken girl are referred to a bit like Victoria Wood or not quite like Victoria water not as good as Victoria whether you're the person nobody measured up to now when we do first thing that comedy could actually be a career view I'm not sure I first joined a Theatre Workshop where you see it when I was about 15 and that was the first time I ever felt you know like a Cleese gone in a lock and I know what I'm doing understand I have something that I can do I played a comedy child woman in a play and I thought I can do something and up until that point I never really felt I was at any good at anything really and people were always crossing me through always this point than saying you know you know goods not reading to work hard enough you look at mess and that was the first time I felt such a really comfortable about doing anything but I didn't I didn't articulate that as something that could be a career choice and I remember at school they used to say to me you should be in it you should be in journalism or you should be in advertising because you're very you know very quick to write you were good to cab you Larry I was quite funny when I wrote so I didn't actually think of being a comedian just didn't occur to me and I didn't think I would make it as an actress because I didn't think I had the conventional looks to go into rep so I was quite as small as thinking quite a small box of what I could do but then for the time I got to university I suppose I just I just wanted to perform somehow I mean I did blundered around I was so sick about the way I approached everything they did tempt me quite a few years to to get a grip really to work out what what you did and how you did it well it's not as if there's any actual guidance no no no I mean you wouldn't sit with a careers adviser who would say I can write well senior being funny yo perhaps man dirt would be that everybody would ever suggest that I'm ever going to Careers Fair in Barry where I lived and the drama section was a system very miserable moment Dundas and I said I want seen actors he said don't that's why I advise you don't and that was the careers Barry I think you worry about a copy place yes did you think that performing stander does it make you happy it's taken me a long time to reach a point where I could receive what I was getting that I could I could just sort of take it and enjoy it I think you know I approached it in such a not a tense way but you know so anxious to get it right and to be the best I could be with it there so I didn't always relax with it and I watch other people I think they're not working what you pass the shot doesn't mean that's like them much better you don't have to you don't have to be perfect you could just be and it would be all right so I think next time I go back and do it I might approach it in a slightly different way I thought that very recently yes yes good laws I wouldn't learn I don't know but I mean I have I have enjoyed I have enjoyed a lot of the stuff I've done the mus that last show I did I did i do then enjoy it and and also I had somebody else on stage and me I had a keyboard player on stage and that made a huge difference to me because it disciplines me other cat and I would the thing I found about it is it's very very lonely not anything I don't like about it is that you travel from town to town you sit in addressing them on your own watching the clock tick around to 8 o'clock you think if I don't get up on stage nothing's going to happen tonight it's just me now I find it very lowering I just find it quite depressing but you have to you it's all I want you on safe of that sort of waiting there's only you and yes I think it's quite it's quite a hard thing to have that right the right temperament yeah unless you're sort of hard-drinking bloke with over there great entourage then and you're not and I'm not even any of them do you over the old chestnut that being you know being a funny players and necessarily means you're going to be extremely depressed no but I think I think it has to be said that a lot of people whose use comedy are coming from a place of alienation or feeling apart or feeling disjointed from things which gives them that great for the crackpot view of things it's not it's not the people who were chosen for the netball team that are all are great stand-up Quinn is it is spotty he nod asked people yes generally and people that are no oddly enough people that an audience feel comfortable with yeah I mean in America possum is differently there women tend to be more glamorous but you know in England women stand up comedians tend to be bit yes okay to say yeah do you think you can attract if they to be funny yes did you have a paranoiac work with boys when you were a bit younger wing err on the lookout for no it is never ever it's never ever had any knock-on effect sexually yes happy to you to you like I'm sure little too distracting especially no I'm not sure actually because I think it I think people find it intimidating they are they find it intimidating or they feel they need to top you you know Joe Kwok yes yes or they need to impress you I mean I think that's after you reach a certain level of celebrity then any encounter you however the stranger is informed by the fact that they know you're a comedian and so they can't just say I got us a brother a boss and that's got going on please I think possibly around comedians it would allow other people to please the comedian who else I have to crack yes I think so man I mean I think people attend sometimes kids are disappointed when they meet because I usually say very much but you decide whether you're going to be generous then or not essentially I just don't have that urge to really talk to people totally accurate especially I think I am a little bit I I do think that sometimes I will avoid going to some things yes I think that's going to be night work yes I mean sort of energy that I absolutely put into my work but I don't want to put into my five by five years yeah and people do tend to think I'm a Lenny has those where tables Oh cheer up never have a project whose face in yeah repose yes doesn't look like cheer Lowell Glenn you know may wonder why isn't you do one thing has been a bit grumpy yes I find personally I don't if it happens to you that I am a gift usually to the parents and the older people at weddings I am chosen to sit in the corner with groups of firm lb relatives I guess ago I will behave and I will feels for me to entertain them a bit can't help that I absolutely feel the need not to really but then I finally easy people will take over and entertain themselves for those fun happy to listen to any old so you definitely don't feel the need to it's not forming necessarily but it's been it's been pumping out that thing that you would pump out onstage I don't like I don't like dude but maybe it's not natural to you anyway to do that no I guess it's not I think Jennifer's very like that Jennifer is exactly either Jennifer practical I know is very much like that she she really will not and she's she's the only person Elliott no matter how this motors no but Tom cause I know about all my tiny deformed jaw well I was not as being not accepted to John school is that a good one to speak no I'm Frances sweetener so I'm a suicide right even though we go looking like oh I had and would know Jennifer if the only person I know that will sit at the hairdresser's and say could you not talk to me please because I really don't want to engage in any conversation while having a haircut and then she doesn't have to speak my I was a straining to discuss our holiday party yeah now I am thinking I've got enough energy to entertain this hairdresser and then whatever they make 40 minutes what have I done in my collection I can exaggerate my reviews that's the forgiveness I'm definitely to please person do you think approval from anyone I think that the approval I've sought from my career has been has been enough really it hasn't had to spill if I don't seek it from everybody on me I'm not I'm not trying to impress everybody I'm not trying to make everybody laugh but it's a rib in a real need for me to do that on on stage but luckily I've had that what happens reviewing critic do you have how you handle er very badly I'm very over sensitive to what people say I find it really upsetting I try not to read them even even the good ones I don't it's it's clear I feel like I've got a skin missing really yeah I feel I should be robust and should say yes it's too much tip paper book I've you know those those words are emblazoned on my mind the first time I went to the Edinburgh Festival in 74 and I was about 21 and I had a review saying well at least when these when she's acting she's not singing so that's something you know my first place said all we've seen this before we forget to play it really how can you remember as clearly is that any nice things network at invent no and you ever wanted to escape from an image you've created of yourself that you think of other people have well I've never really known what what my image was what other people luckily you don't know what people see of you thank God I don't know I could live with that myself as projection to the back of my eyeballs so I don't I don't worry about it really I just try and look like I look and not what not worry what people are seeing what they're taking from it every other thought okay to think that you're this kind of performance you want to battle against that a little bit and jump out of that box no because I only ever do I do what I want to do really you know not choose what I want to do so I've not I've not been restricted by anybody I mean I don't get offered many other things and stuff I do so sometimes I think when I see people until they are cooked like that was nobody ever really asked me to do that but I think so I think people have an image of me as this sort of person who only does and does the things that she writes and doesn't want to be offered anything so hardly ever on well it might be true might knit that you quite like to control what you do yeah where this somebody offers you a part you don't get to control it yeah I mean I'm certainly not saying when did you start to control what you did in terms of I mean you ballsy what was written it and but when did you decide that you might be able to call the shop I don't know really um what's lovely is if you can if you work with somebody who brings something else to it I think sometimes it's a bit limiting when you try it when you when you just rely on your own vision and I know for myself I'm a very visual person so I'm always glad to work with somebody else was a good I in reason I'm asking about us because I think we had a moment and Jen and I when we realized that you could go into the editing suite and you could make some choices abandoning some Jennifer now we'll have monitors say for now on the floor yeah this evening yeah not really used to do that other though yeah I think sometimes if you've written a sketch and you know the way it goes it's very I think with sketches I think you have to you have to call the shots really because there's only you understand you know that it's funny you looking like that but it's not funny of me looking like this and you say that quite a lot gets lost and from writers way on the page you cannot expect someone else to totally understand that there are things you guys get to wear yeah in your area into little bit short-handed amazed when people don't know what is and do you wish there were more women performing Lisa secretly glad there are nice to be delighted used to be delighted there weren't any because I thought it gave me an advantage and truthfully I really don't care because all that matters is that people are good and it seems to me that that the reason there are so few that only a few have chosen to do it it's not that people couldn't do it is they don't want to because it's an odd thing taught to do and maybe it is a more male thing there's a controller huge bunch of people I don't know I mean I've always thought that the only way you answer that question is why the Sophia which you haven't asked to but I'm known I'd go myself an answer you have to ask the man see what I want who felt they couldn't do it and we say well why why couldn't you do it there's this idea that this female come with a and there's comedy and I just thought just wanted to be accommodating here I thought was more giving women would step up really just wish it was it wasn't a question that ever had to be asked yeah you didn't have to make but even in the eighties I'm not making this program for that we know I know but I I I am interested in the fact that you know you really can't go along to any comedy club and you can ask if you could stand up a bit of you could do three minutes one of them I kept anybody will let you do that virtually yeah but for some reason hardly any girls do that here's a great and very funny just don't think that's a proper job or they don't think they want to do it yet they love watching you they tell me they love watching us and so ya understand why they don't regard it as a career a funeral no I don't understand well we couldn't we can't understand because we've done it too quick yeah yeah but by accident almost certainly in my case it'll be and it wasn't as if I thought hey here there's the thing I want to do I mean I didn't think those are selling - it'll add compeletely having a really good time and somebody thinks this is okay to do as a job yes you know so we're so made a little bit guilty of anything what about the writing do you do you do it with a computer now at longhand I can I can touch time but I prefer to I write jokes long camp all right all right nor to you if think sort of computer okay yeah it's a hardly by hardly went write them down so it's not like a proper script it's just sort of ideas and I work it out on the stage are you very difficult about the hours that you work well I mean like I said it gets done I don't I don't worry about when I do it now I just do it when I've got to do it oh did you used to worry about it anyway I need to set Alice and then uh but then have some be sitting there not doing anything like this is stupid so I've loosened up on that but it all gets done not a procrastinator them no I know you are I didn't use a busybody ask that was Jennifer's job and I'll bet that I used to be deafening can't leave the room until something's written you know we are this close important work ethic or something about this we've got the clocks in and by family vehicle yeah she now that this kids to get home for and yes busy things that you might do there's any certain part of the day be available prayer so I sort of feel that you know we ought to have done something at this time that I know that the kind of work we do comes out of chatting to each of them and passing ideas that thing out of the air maybe helping have the air and as you're relaxed yeah you know Jennifer was they asking have a Kleenex and we're not going to carriages and think explicit champagne do what feels like a little world see if something happens but it's very accepting me to just play yeah and never to get a little bit you know that's been there's two of you that it's different you know yeah that's one of you I'm not going to take myself to Claridge's no I mean any kind of nice silence DC is is anything material to you know what's awfully muslin hardly anything is oh I mean would you would you plunder your or will you do I think so maybe you don't leave it says such a thing digi do you plunder your own life then very little very little I took till very odd about it really I never felt I could talk much about my children which is the major part of my life because that seemed so rude to them really to sort of make them until almost figures of fun so I've done stuff done that very very sparingly and very in a very nonspecific way but I did used to say that that my son when he was born that like something out the bino and I said it when in about three and he always said that we used used to say that looking at the be now God could have said much worse implement and and now because because I'm separated and my mind is broken down which you know some people in here that's a routine and I think all I can't I can't come on any because it's painful and you know there's somebody else involved in it and I've got two children and part of me would love to do a big routine part and another problem is absolutely horrified by the thought and that's the part that winds of leonidas are twins because you want to be honorable yeah yeah and it's private and it's private yeah but on another level I like saying things are too truthful so it's it's a complicated thing what you pick and choose that of you're alive because you are trying to you're trying to use things that other people recognize is yes so have to pick the things I think other people will tune into without being dishonest and I just especially load of lies risk is complicated well what goes through your head while you're performing stand-up I think I have learned to enjoy it now I never used to enjoy story forgiving that you know what's the next thing what's the next thing what's the next thing I suppose that when I do stand-up now and I'm telling jokes and talking it says it's as if I'm just doing it for that for the first time for that one night and those things are very real it's all very real to me when I say this happened to that happen this is if it really has happened even though it's lies and I mean oh you are really in the moment I'm able to be in the moment which is very lovely are you thinking ahead a lot and are you editing anything or no are you making mental note of what you might change no I think when I come off and I think oh actually did the deserve it at the time so easily sinking in it at some level people have a thank you for making them half yeah I just feel about that I think it's lovely I don't take that as a you know I think I don't brush it off because I think it's a lovely thing to be thanked and I think it's a lovely thing if you have a job that is that is life enhancing in some way so I feel very really really fortunate to have had that to have had that job been able to do that thing so I don't dismiss it and even though I know I know myself I've not always had the enjoyment out of it that I might have had I do appreciate the fact that other people have had huge enjoyment and when I see other people work and it gives me a buzz then I know that other people are getting that but off me so I'm not going to be dismissive of it now I'm very grateful for it what were you do you think yes it was because I didn't want to get conceited so people I do it but now all I'll lap it up now do you think that you will be doing stand-up forever I don't know I think this is a this is a complication to do with women that men don't have I think there is there is a perception of a woman not being able to do something after a certain age and because comedy is tied up with attractiveness in some way even there we not most was not overtly sexy or glamorous I think there is a prejudice against older women doing anything like reading news so I can't deny that that would be consideration so I don't know I mean how do we know you're like wait I sort of feel for my cable no I don't know because I thought it's covered years I had stopped doing it I had stopped doing stand-up but I don't know whether I really have or not I might have to carry on doing it tonight and I was 50 again and I thought well fifty is a good time to stop and I don't I don't need to do it a lot of those other things up I can do but you might want to do I might want I might if I want to do it then I think it'll be the right thing to do and bollocks to anybody who thinks I'm too old to do it yes America fine Joan Rivers going to be fine people will crack on with it because they're obviously enjoying it or the world to do it yeah I can't think of anybody but then there hasn't been any there hasn't been any mainstream stand-up comedians yet I mean apart from myself I'm probably the oldest one I would say I thought think of anybody you know I probably am the oldest one so I guess it's up to me it's awesome thank you carry on on I am the van Gogh yeah well you know what I won't carry on a little bit I've got something to say it's really whether you've got something to say yeah and you have got the pressure of Lebanese done this before so is it right or wrong yeah yeah definitely something old it's a funny thing really because I I imagine that by this time as you would have thought there would be there would be a lot of girls going round playing the big theaters and having the big telly show and doing the big the big shows or running at the West End or something and there aren't any now there aren't any comparable to you and Jennifer and myself yeah if you're doing stand-up I think you've got to have something to say once once you remove yourself from that sort of you know the frilly shirted tabhi style comedian where they just did my mother-in-law said this I walked into a bar once you start trying to do routines a bit about yourself you've got to know something about the world or something about you and when I started at 21 I'm going to say it all so I could I could write a little funny songs but they were just feeble really what sort of six form stuff what a few years down the line I thought have got a line on something [Music]

Channel: ppotter

Views: 84,857

Rating: 4.9097743 out of 5

Keywords: dawn french, girls who do comedy, 2006, interview, comedy, julie walters, victoria wood

Id: -X3POVsLevA

Length: 28min 59sec (1739 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 12 2017