It’s been a bad year already for the loss of likeable celebrities, but the death of Victoria Wood at the age of 62 has led to an outpouring of love and affection across the Guardian. Lucy Mangan’s lovely tribute received hundreds of comments paying tribute to the comedian and actor.
“She was just one of us, like Rik Mayall was,” said Reggie Blue. “She understood the struggle and the minutiae of every day living.”
One theme that emerged among the tributes was the impossibility of writing about her without quoting a line, or a scene, or a reference.
I've been reading the tributes trying to feel sad but I can't stop laughing at all the clips people have linked to and the lines that have been quoted.
Me neither.
So without further ado, here are a selection of the best quotes and tributes we’ve received from the comments and via GuardianWitness.
Victoria Wood’s school play
Victoria Wood's first play
This play was written and produced by Vicky, aged 15, at Bury Grammar School for Girls in 1968 after O levels were finished. The play was called "Pearl a Melodrama" and was presented to the whole school. Vicky wrote the script and all the songs and music. She played the piano and sang along with all of us.
“Vicky was a wonderful person, shy and clever and witty and most of all modest. She’s sadly missed,” says Ann Mark, then Ann Shilco, who shared the picture above. The chorus of the play:
With a Cupid’s kiss corn plaster
You’ll have feet like alabaster
Be a Mrs not a Miss
With a Cupid’s kiss
A comedic polymath
As good a comedic polymath as there ever was. Great writer, hilarious stand up, brilliant songwriter and musician an actress of real, real quality. Vastly, vastly underrated
She was sharp and learned even when slotting into others' comedic formats. When she appeared on Radio 4, on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, she offered this memorable addition to the stream there of new definitions of words:
châtelaine - couldn't make it to the farmhouse in time.
At this point, we were deluged with quotes. So many quotes.
Don’t have the prawns
"Don't have the prawns, they hang around sewage outlet pipes treading water with their mouths open."
Farewell to a comic genius.
Two Soups
I remember a line about a relationship that had been going so long that "their tune" was Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep.
Priceless. RIP
Acne
Also loved: "When I was a teenager I had terrible acne. A blind friend thought I was covered in graffiti."
Dinnerladies
So many people have said how much Victoria Wood meant to them and I am the same ....so much great comedy . But just something as simple as the lryics she wrote for Dinnerladies used to bring me to tears....and today is even more poignant.
Getting up, getting out, getting on, getting going,
Wears away at the dreams that you hold in your heart,
All the scared little choices you make without knowing,
Take away from the thing that you had at the start.
Chorus:
Day by day, drops of water wear the stone away,
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
What a brilliant talent.
Oh, another brilliant bit: Dinnerladies, Anne Reid's character reading about a programme called 'Regrets' and imagining what it might be about. Then adjusting glasses and realising that it's 'Rugrats'. Wonderful.
And the programme about Delius having syphyllis called 'The Delius Myth' and Dolly replying 'Delia Smith's never got syphillis - I mean a woman with immaculate teatowels could never have a sexually transmittable disease'. Pure gold
And Dolly's views on modern higher education: 'these days you can just put up two poems in a bus shelter and call it a university'
In a limo on the way to a wedding
"but...but..I haven't got something borrowed or something blue!"
"yev got a mortgage and varicose veins - get on with it!"
Sublime lady. Thanks for a lovely article Lucy.
Is it on the trolley?
"Red cabbage, how much?!"
No visit to the vegetable aisle is complete in our house unless someone shouts out "Red cabbage, how much?" To which the reply of course is "Red cabbage, no idea!" It's quite a responsibility...
RIP Victoria Wood. A warm, witty, razor sharp sense of humour whilst being down to earth at the same time.
From 'Over To Pam' episode:
Lorraine: 'I were sexually re-hassed, Pam...they used to push me naked round the boardroom on an orthopaedic sunlounger!'
Pam: 'How often did this happen, Lorraine?'
Lorraine: 'Every teabreak.'
Victoria playing a woman in a health spa as a large lady walked passed her - " It 'd take two big lads an' a wheelbarrow to get her buttocks clenched "
"The queue for the cafe went all the way thought women's separates but I only wanted a cup of tea and a sit down so I went down the blood donors..."
Ah we could go on forever, but you get the idea. RIP Victoria Wood, you were loved and you’ll be missed.
Lovely tribute. I remember first seeing her on TV when I was about ten and thinking - oh! She's like my mum. They let normal people on telly! It was important to me. And of course she was funny. Maybe there wouldn't be a Dinnerladies without Fawlty Towers but the former is by far the superior to me. She'll be sorely missed.