Wood and Walters - Series

Series

• Broadcast 1 January 1982 - 21 February 1982

For the series a year later, the ‘Two Creatures Great and Small’ adjunct had been dropped, as critics commenting on Wood’s weight had been beginning to get to her (though she did also say later she was delighted that she was once described as "dominating the stage like a witty tank").

The show was not a happy experience as, in the intervening time since the pilot, the show's producer (and Wood’s mentor) Peter Eckersley had died of cancer. It was a terrible blow to Wood who said "he had lots of ideas for the series…but he never told me what they were. His value to me was inestimable. He had a marvellous eye for what was unnecessary and great attention to detail. He had liked the first material for the series but never saw any of the other stuff." Wood was not impressed by his replacement for the series, Brian Armstrong, and was of the opinion that he had hired several unsuitable actors.

The studio audience was generally filled with pensioners who often had difficulty understanding Wood’s refined humour. Before one sketch, the warm up man had to explain to them what a boutique was. Wood said she heard one disgusted audience member say to her friend: "You realise we’re missing Brideshead for this".

Sketches for Wood and Walters included

• The Woman With 740 Children, in which Wood played a woman who overdosed on a fertility drug. Much to her surprise, Granada hired 70 babies to appear in the sketch.
• ‘Girl Talking’ was an expert parody of social realist documentaries, and
• ‘Northerners’ was a song parodying stereotypes of the North of England.

A regular character on the show was Dotty. The items entitled "Dotty's Slot" featured Walters as Dotty, who performed a witty monologue by a middle-classed housewife discussing all matters national and trivial, such as in the sketch ‘Dotty on Women’s Lib’. As a character, she shares many similarities with a later Wood creation ‘Kitty’ (as played by Patricia Routledge).

Rik Mayall also appeared in a one-off monologue as a chauvinistic feminist called Mitch. Filling a similar guest slot as he had with Kevin Turvey in the sketch show A Kick Up the Eighties. Another alternative comedy innovator to appear on the show was John Dowie, who had already toured with Wood in 1978.

Wood's view of the series was “Some bits of it were good, some deadly”.

Around this time, Wood made a weekly musical appearance in the BBC Radio 2 show The Little and Large Party, narrated an Arts Council film on the pantomime dame, and was profiled in the schools programme Scene. Walters would also appear with Michael Angelis in 1982 as his wife in Alan Bleasdale’s Boys from the Blackstuff.

Wood and Walters place in British comedy history can be seen as that of a dry run for the more popular and acclaimed Victoria Wood As Seen On TV which aired on BBC television between 1985-87, which shared some of the same elements such as pseudo-documentaries, songs, sketches, as well as co-starring Walters and Preston.