Wednesday 20 April 2016

Victoria Wood

Well what can I say? No funny/touching liturgies, because we reserve those for people who have died at the upper end of the Bible's threescore and ten/fourscore range.

I'm bloody bloody gutted. Most celebrities we wave goodbye to with a moderate feeling of regret. But Victoria Wood? I've not felt so bad about a celebrity dying since Kirsty MacColl.

Victoria Wood was a genius. Funny. Easy to relate to. Utterly at ease in performance. Capable of balancing Northern, domestic humour with an amazing universality. If it weren't for Victoria Wood, then Peter Kay and Johnny Vegas would currently be doing whatever cheerful Northern people do when they can't get a job in comedy. Whippet-racing or something. I don't know. That's not the point. The point is that Victoria Wood was bloody brilliant and now she's not with us. And it's too soon.

Not many things do we have, to get through this vale of tears. Faith, if we're blessed. Ambition, if we don't understand the concepts of eternity and human fallibility. Love of friends and family. Beauty. And humour. Victoria Wood brought beauty and humour. Brilliant humour.

God bless you, Victoria Wood. I hope you finally catch up with your friend, Kimberly. And no, I haven't seen her.

10 comments :

  1. A fitting and beautiful tribute, Archdruid.

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  2. Thank you for saying it for us. I too am gutted.

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  3. I echo both the above comments. She was one of a kind, and a good actress, writer, musician as well as supremely funny.
    Much much too soon.

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  4. So agree with the joint sadness of the deaths of Kirsty (2000) and Victoria (2016)

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  5. Whippet racing? Clog dancing, if you please!

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  6. You need to listen to some Johnny Vegas if you think he's cheerful!

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    1. He is both more Northern and more cheerful than I am.

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  7. Thanks, you found the words.

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  8. Whenever I think of her, one of her inimitable one-liners comes to mind and I smile. I think it was Clive James who said that humour was common-sense, dancing. Victoria's humour was exactly that. Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon her. May she in peace.

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  9. Actually it's ferrets that get raced, through drainpipes. You bet on which drainpipe they will choose.

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