Let’s Do It: The Authorized Biography of Victoria Wood

Victoria Wood is one of my three favourite writers. This is how I thought her career went. 

She wins New Faces, sings a few songs on the consumer affairs programme That’s Life, makes Wood and Walters for ITV, then ascends to National Treasure status with Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV. After which she pops up from time to time with such gems as Victoria Wood Presents, Pat & Margaret, Acorn Antiques and dinnerladies. A richly deserved charmed life for a highly talented writer and performer.

No.

She won a round of New Faces, but not the final of that series. Her appearance on That’s Life was followed by a distinct lack of interest from almost everyone. Wood and Walters left many people bemused. But she kept at it. She wrote. She toured. She made TV adverts. She toured more. And wrote more. And made documentaries. One thing you take away from this book is how damned hard she worked.

And it’s all there, in the awesomely researched 506 pages of this biography. All those plays, tours, adverts, documentaries, series, Christmas Specials and one-off films. Everything. In exhaustive detail. Yet somehow, Victoria Wood herself seems to be missing from all this.

It’s not that I wanted some warts-and-all biography revealing what a monster she was. She wasn’t. By all accounts, she was a shy but friendly and loyal, immensely creative individual who knew what she wanted, and earned the right to demand it. It’s just that, in the end, this book comes across as more a record of work produced than an insight into a life.