That could have accurately described Victoria’s own feelings up until the moment she entered the top storey of Hey Brook County Primary School, which the Rochdale Youth Theatre Workshop had converted for its own use.
‘She arrived with her talent, that was already there; I think the Workshop gave her the confidence,’ said David Morton – Rochdale’s drama adviser – of Victoria.
‘I adored the youth theatre,’ she said. ‘It gave me the pointer to what I was good at. I had such a rush of adrenaline when I walked into that building. I was first in and last out every day.’
It was a place where she could live out the exploits of the Blue Door Theatre Company for herself. In light of her home life, it was hardly surprising that she virtually lived at the Rochdale school. She was not exaggerating when she described it as her ‘salvation’.
‘There was a marvellous atmosphere, it wasn’t like we were children at all. You were treated as an adult … I just loved it all,’ she said. ‘I think I learned more there than anywhere.
‘It didn’t matter if you had spots or you were fat or you were 15 or you were 45.’
The summer months were the busiest, attracting around 100 youngsters. Membership was dependent on enthusiasm, not ability. The days were spent rehearsing for one of three productions, which were usually performed in September.
‘There was a very high degree of professionalism. I’ve never seen anything of that standard since,’ said former member Joe Dawson. ‘It was unique and very special. We learned so much. We were allowed to explore and develop ideas. It was all so new to us.’
They were taught about design, lighting, sound and costumes and there were workshops in mime, clowning and movement. Talks and demonstrations were given by visiting professionals. Smaller productions would take place throughout the year with twice-weekly evening meetings. These were attended by a core of around 15, of which Bob Mason, Rosalind Wood, Joe Dawson and his future wife, Jeanette Hynes, were considered the leading lights.
‘They were a very talented group and Victoria, largely because of her age, was on the fringe. I think she was in awe of them,’ said David Morton. ‘She always regarded herself as the one who didn’t know anything.’
Comparisons between the two Wood sisters were inevitable. The dainty, dark and artistic Rosalind was regarded as the better actress, but for once Victoria did not simply give up and withdraw. Her first part was a comedy char (an early Mrs Overall?) in a semi-devised production of The Rising Generation by Ann Jellico who, for years afterwards, Victoria believed was called Angelico. The post-nuclear protest play about the peace and youth movements was set in a stadium during a rally and called for a large cast.
‘The char was a smallish role, but a great character part,’ recalled Joe Dawson. She worked at the stadium and her purpose was to represent a contrasting outlook to the youngsters. Although Victoria had few lines she certainly made an impression, thanks to her football boots, curlers, padded bosom and the bottles of booze secreted about her person which fell out at comically inopportune moments.
Another early production, Dracula, saw her as a wolf and a prompter. This caused some difficulties as it meant her offstage moments were spent squinting down a cornflake packet muzzle trying to read the script.
Irrespective of the size of the parts, the whole workshop experience led to her developing self-esteem. ‘I just suddenly thought, “Oh yes, this is the thing I can do” … After being told at school that you can’t do this, you’re hopeless, you’re bad at that, you’re so naughty and dirty and messy. And this clicked, and I thought, “Well, this is the thing I can do.”’
She was still not totally confident, however, and the security blankets of childhood remained. David Morton remembered her sitting in the corner a lot, nursing her trumpet and sucking her thumb. But he was aware of her originality. ‘Her acting was imaginative and intuitive and interesting. She was not as disciplined as the others and she just about kept within the parameter of what we were doing, but she was inventive. Her comic invention stood out, as did her writing skills.’
Like others after him, Morton did not think Victoria had the necessary qualities to be a professional actress. ‘Musicianship was her strength. I can’t honestly say I saw a future for her as a performer. She didn’t really have the ability for serious roles. She had a shy manner, except when she got behind the piano and she’d break into songs she’d written.’
In The Swish of the Curtain the Blue Door Theatre Company performed at Sunday School Christmas parties and a garden fête at the vicarage in aid of the South England Bible Campaign. But the sketch show Victoria wrote for the Workshop was for a very different kind of audience.
‘We did it at Buckley Hall Youth Detention Centre,’ said Diane Leach. ‘It was a one-off but they loved it.’
As Victoria entered her O-level year in September 1968, Rosalind set off for Loughborough Art College and Helen, who had gained A levels in History, English and Geography, was about to embark on a degree course at Manchester University. The news made the front page of the Bury Times, and she revealed she planned to teach teenagers after graduating. ‘I get on very well with them,’ said Helen.
The story appeared just days before Victoria began a new school term and would have been a topic of conversation for her fellow pupils. Although Victoria was undoubtedly proud of her mother’s achievements, the publicity was unwelcome as it exposed her to potential ridicule and embarrassment. The photograph of Helen which appeared in the newspaper showed her engaged in her unusual hobby of making dolls of characters from English literature in period costume.
Someone else was getting publicity in the local papers during that new term and, along with Pamela Brown’s example, it demonstrated to Victoria that youth was no obstacle to being a successful writer. The subject of the attention was Bob Mason, one of the Rochdale Youth Theatre Workshop crowd. He had won first prize in the Daily Mirror’s young poets competition with ‘Loughrigg Autumn’, a poem about ‘autumn with a dead sheep and life’ as the 16-year-old Rochdale Technical College student explained to the Rochdale Observer.
In The Swish of the Curtain Lynette nearly falls downstairs with delight when the Bishop invites her and her chums to Stratford-upon-Avon for a Shakespearean festival. Victoria was equally excited when Bury Grammar organised a similar trip for the Upper Vth in July 1969. ‘We stayed in hotels for about four days and that was really good fun,’ recalled Victoria.
Fired with enthusiasm by the visit, Victoria was unable to prevent her own ambition to perform from spilling into her school life. One of her greatest successes came on 15 July 1969. As an end-of-term lark, each year of the school had to perform a one-act play. The Upper Vth as a whole were credited with devising and producing Pearl (‘a melodrama sponsored by Cupid’s Kiss Corn Plaster’). In reality it was a Victoria Wood production.
‘It was based on the old silent movies. Victoria wrote the play, did the music and played the piano,’ said Hilary Wills. ‘Pat Ogden was the Pearl White figure and Joy Mendelsohn was the villain with the big tall hat and the moustache and cape. Pat was tied to the railway track. They used dustbin lids for the wheels of the train.’
Performed on the new school stage, which had only just been completed (there were no curtains to swish), Pearl was the undoubted hit of the day and the school magazine singled out the ‘hilarious’ play for special praise.
The ‘sponsors’ interrupted the piece with adverts for their product and Victoria, who once considered copywriting as a career, always remembered one of the jingles:
With a Cupid’s Kiss corn plaster
You’ll have feet like alabaster,
Be a Mrs, not a Miss
With a Cupid’s Kiss.
This marked the advent of a lifelong obsession with advertising and brand names for Victoria. It was hardly surprising that she should have been influenced by the art form as the first British television advert appeared in 1955 – commercials shared Victoria’s infancy and developed
alongside her.
The summer of 1969 was a major breakthrough for Victoria. She fell in love. Naturally, it was the Rochdale Youth Theatre Workshop that facilitated her happiness. Bob Mason, the 17-year-old son of a coachworker, with his studious manner and a Beatles haircut his grandmother disapproved of, became her first boyfriend.
The precociously talented poet and playwright must have cut quite a romantic and exciting figure to Victoria. He was a fan of Dylan Thomas and a painter of abstract art. Bob shared Victoria’s ingrained melancholy, confessing to the Rochdale Observer that he was perturbed that most of his writing ended tragically. Significantly, he also had a lot in common with Stanley Wood, from the playwriting to a fondness for jazz. Bob had even played father to Rosalind in a production of Hobson’s Choice.
His charisma, ambition and success proved an irresistible combination for Victoria. Just as the Blue Door Theatre Company brought Lynette Darwin and Nigel Halford together, the Rochdale Youth Theatre Workshop acted as Cupid for Victoria and Bob.
‘We were always writing songs,’ recalled Mason. ‘That’s where the real deep connection was. Vicky had an old 78 recording by the jazz pianist Art Tatum and I remember us listening to that. We loved plonking about on the piano.
‘She was a kindred spirit – somebody who was as creative as I was then. It was very exciting to be with someone who could also make up rhymes and be funny, and who was a similar wacky type to the type I was.’
He added: ‘It was all very rumbustious and kind of rolly-abouty. I didn’t think we were terribly romantic about it. We were great mates. She probably had high hopes for us. There was a huge romantic attachment, a dream attachment – and a fantasy attachment as well.’
The Daily Mirror poetry competition had not been his first success. In 1967 he achieved the sort of acclaim Victoria dreamed of when he beat 3,000 other young writers to win the Rediffusion Write A Play competition for under 16-year-olds. To An Audience of Cork-Lined Ears was a 10-minute play about an institutionalised man articulating his reaction to his situation and the world around him. When it was screened Milton Shulman of the Evening Standard described it as ‘very impressive’, and Hilary Spurling of the Spectator said that, in parts, it was as good as professional television plays.
Where Victoria was inert, Bob was pro-active and he was actually on the verge of submitting his unsolicited play to television companies when he heard about the competition. The press made a fuss of him when he returned from London after the judging and he was photographed on a patch of land known as ‘The Tip’ gazing into the distance with his jacket over his shoulder. He handled his success with a mixture of diffidence, indifference and arrogance, telling reporters: ‘I really don’t care what people think – I’m just the same person.’ His prize was a weekend in Stratford-upon-Avon where he saw plays and met the leading actors. ‘It’s not a Mothers’ Union coach trip,’ he told the press. ‘I’ll be going behind the scenes there. You can’t just pay to meet the actors. They just wouldn’t listen to you.’
Victoria and Bob’s first summer of love coincided with the first-ever Bury Lions Carnival. Although the theme of the day was ‘Lancashire Through the Ages’ the populace did not cotton on, hence a float of a large silver foil Apollo space rocket in the parade. The highlight of the day was a timed competition in which men in vests, armed with sledgehammers, had to smash 34 pianos, much to the delight of the cheering crowds. It was time for Victoria to think about escaping, and Bob Mason was signposting the way.
Pearl gave her the confidence to audition for the school play, a production of The Winter’s Tale. Having discovered her dramatic feet at Rochdale Youth Theatre Workshop, Victoria’s enthusiasm was ignited and she successfully auditioned, winning the part of Autolycus, a rogue.
The production was one of the most elaborate ever attempted by the school and there was more excitement than usual as it marked the debut of the new apron stage and lighting system. Besides acting, Victoria was one of several girls who composed the music.
A performance for the school was given on 15 December 1969, with public performances the following two evenings.
‘It wasn’t a main part but she made the role her own,’ said Gail Branch. ‘We all knew then that she’d got something.’ Hilary Wills said Victoria’s performance was ‘brilliant’, and the school magazine was similarly impressed, describing her as ‘hilariously roguish’.
Despite the plaudits, Victoria did not regard it as a beneficial experience. ‘You couldn’t be in the school play unless you did your homework, so that left that out,’ she said. ‘I didn’t get in the school play until about seventeen and a half, by which time it was too late to do me any good.’ Her enduring memory is not of her performance, but of her unflattering costume: ‘horrible brown tights that hadn’t been washed for about a million years’.
The evidence that she could shine on stage, coupled with the creative outlet she found at Rochdale Youth Theatre Workshop, strengthened Victoria’s conviction that becoming an actress was the career she should strive for. But Bury Grammar was not the sort of place which encouraged girls to risk a life in the theatre. ‘I knew what I wanted to do, but I didn’t really like to say to anybody “I want to go on stage and be famous” so I just used to say that I wanted to do English because that’s what I was good at,’ she said. ‘The expectation was, of course, that you just went to university. I remember saying to somebody that I wanted to be an actress and the woman saying, “Just don’t. That’s not possible.”’ Such a reaction deterred Victoria from admitting her real goal. ‘I always wanted to be a comedienne, but I never told anyone because I thought it was such a stupid thing to want to be, and that no one would really understand.’
Instead, she sought advice from Peter Ustinov, writing and asking him what he did to achieve a foothold. ‘He said: “What I did bears no relation to what you would do”, which is the right answer,’ she recalled. Willie Rushton did not reply to her letter.
Performing for those who already knew her gave Victoria some security, but auditioning for drama schools was another matter altogether. Strangers usually made her feel timid, but her determination to break into showbusiness drove her on. However, she still lacked the courage to try for RADA or the Central School of Speech and Drama, so instead chose some lesser-known institutions. Victoria was rejected time and time again; at one audition for a drama school in Swiss Cottage she was even told she had a deformed jaw and could not pronounce her ‘s’s.
For her audition piece the bespectacled Victoria chose to do the death scene from Romeo and Juliet. At Manchester Polytechnic’s School of Theatre she performed this in her green cardigan, a midi skirt and a green PVC maxi-coat. She was not accepted.
The day was significant, however, as it was the first time Victoria met Julie Walters, an event which made an impression on both of them. The 20-year-old Walters was a first-year student. Her journey from her home town of Smethwick in the Black Country to Manchester had not been without incident. After a series of unsuccessful stints working in an insurance office, a shoe shop, a cigarette factory and the canteen of United Cattle Products, she trained to be a nurse. When she told her fiery Irish mother that she was giving up nursing for acting she had to get her two brothers and father to stand between them for protection.
On that fateful day at Manchester Polytechnic in 1970 Walters had been assigned the task of giving the young hopefuls a tour of the building. Dressed in a leotard and brimming with confidence, she entertained them with a stream of anecdotes.
‘Somebody’s mother must have said to her, “What did you do before coming here?”,’ recalled Victoria. ‘She just launched into this huge impression of being a nurse and how she used to wheel commodes down the ward, with lots of acting out and showing off. I was quite mesmerised by her. She had these teeny-weeny eyes, tons of eye-shadow and tons of hair.’
Walters remembered Victoria as a ‘little girl with glasses who was being quietly sick in the corner’.
But de
spite the series of rejections on the audition round, Victoria still had the stubborness and presence of mind not to desperately accept the one drama school that did offer her a place. As someone who felt unhappy surrounded by the beautiful and bright of Bury Grammar, it was curious that she rejected the place because ‘everyone there was like me – fat with glasses’.
Victoria knew she had been academically indolent during her first five years at grammar school. Being forced to go to a place she did not like did not sit well with her independent nature. But despite the pressure exerted on the girls to continue their education (and 22 of her 30-strong form group did), entering the Sixth Form was still a personal choice for Victoria. It helped that sixth formers, in Hilary Wills’ words, ‘were treated like we had brains, as if we could think for ourselves’.
Opting out of those competitive initial few years for fear of being outshone was all very well, but the consequences of dropping out of school at 16 were unpalatable. The teachers painted a bleak and unfulfilling future of life without A levels. For Victoria, who dreamed of fame, the idea of ending up working in a Bury bank, shop or office was unthinkable.
‘I was really lazy, and I never did any work for the first five years, so I was always in trouble,’ she said. ‘If there was a bottom stream for a subject, I was always in it. It was only after I’d failed my O levels 74 times that I perked up, and I was actually quite clever in the Sixth Form. But before that, everyone used to get annoyed with me because I never did my homework. I didn’t win any prizes at school – not a thing. I wasn’t stupid, I was lazy.’
Victoria Wood Page 6