\u2018When I drove her in my Saab, she said she loved my soft top\u2019<\/p>\n
Duncan Preston<\/p>\n
I can still remember waiting to be introduced to Victoria at the Granada offices for her TV film, Happy Since I Met You. She\u2019d been at lunch with Julie Walters and they hadn\u2019t seen each other for quite some time. They were a little bit refreshed, you know what I mean? I can still hear the crash of a door in a corridor as they arrived, and when they came in it was like being hit by a firing squad. I said to my agent afterwards: \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019d want that job.\u201d And he said: \u201cWell, they just offered you the part.\u201d<\/p>\n
I had planned to be a serious actor \u2013 do the classics \u2013 but becoming part of Victoria\u2019s company for her sketch shows was the end of that. I used to take her to work in my Saab every day, because we lived less than a mile apart. She would joke: \u201cI love Duncan\u2019s soft top.\u201d We became good friends \u2013 and Julie and I had a thing at the time \u2013 but it wasn\u2019t all sweetness and light. Vic was a genius and not the easiest person to work with because she insisted that you do everything exactly as it was written. She would make you do it again and again and again, until you said the right words.<\/p>\n
I always felt like the token male in that world. We had loads of disagreements on dinnerladies. Early on in filming, I said: \u201cYou might as well write me out of this because I\u2019ve got nothing to do.\u201d She was not happy. She wrote me a letter overnight, which she came down and put through my letterbox. She was seething. And the next week, wow, you\u2019ve never seen as much bloody stuff as I had to learn: tongue-twisters and all sorts.<\/p>\n
\u2018Suburban and witty with no swearing, she was a revelation\u2019<\/p>\n
Nigel Planer<\/p>\n
The first time I met Victoria was at Cardiff\u2019s Chapter arts centre when she was top of the bill with the poet, comedian and genius John Dowie. That was a strange combination: his wild sarcastic monologues, with her on the piano singing her songs about dressing gowns and cocoa. I was lower on the bill, with Peter Richardson in our double act The Outer Limits. In a climate of very male comedy and rock music and later punk, Victoria stuck out: confidently suburban and witty, with no swearing or violence, which were our mainstays. She was a bit of a revelation. I don\u2019t think she was even drinking in the bar after the show.<\/p>\n
\u2018She just knew what was needed\u2019 \u2026 Sally Ann Triplett, left, with Duncan Preston and Julie Walters in Acorn Antiques: The Musical! Photograph: Tristram Kenton\/The Guardian\u2018She\u2019d take me home at night in her chauffeur-driven car\u2019<\/p>\n
Sally Ann Triplett<\/p>\n
Working on Acorn Antiques: The Musical! was a long and intense process. The whole thing lasted eight months. Vic cast me as Miss Berta, which was the role she played in the original sketch. She was very generous and very, very thoughtful: during rehearsals, we realised we lived near each other in London and she used to take me home at night in her chauffeur-driven car. And, because we both had daughters called Grace, she\u2019d give me little things like pillows or stickers with Grace written on them, from when her daughter was a baby.<\/p>\n
double quotation markJust before I went on stage, she whispered: You\u2019re doing the whole of act one wrong<\/p>\n
You don\u2019t meet many actual geniuses and, as most people would tell you, Vic could be tricky. But it\u2019s because she just knew what was needed. If there was something just slightly out, she had to say. And Acorn Antiques was a massive deal for her. She\u2019d never done a musical before and it was a new adventure.<\/p>\n
Trevor Nunn was the official director, but Vic was there every second of the day. He\u2019d say: \u201cWe\u2019re going to go from the top of the scene\u201d \u2013 and everyone would get ready. Then Vic would come up and whisper in your ear and give you a note just before you started. The most memorable one she gave me was: \u201cYou\u2019re doing the whole of act one wrong.\u201d And you can\u2019t help but think: \u201cWell, I probably am.\u201d<\/p>\n
She shared the role of Mrs Overall with Julie Walters. The craziest thing about that was Vic\u2019s curtain call on the nights she performed. We were at the Haymarket, which is a chocolate box London theatre, a beautiful but small space where the audience is right in front of you. But Vic would always bow to the right, bow to the left, then bow straight on. She\u2019d sold out the Royal Albert Hall in 1997 and I think she thought she was still there.<\/p>\n
Sally Ann Triplett stars in the new Victoria Wood musical, Fourteen Again, at the Victoria Wood <\/a>theatre, Bowness-on-Windermere<\/a>, from 1 May <\/p>\n \u2018Our first conversations were impressions of other people\u2019<\/p>\n Jim Moir (AKA Vic Reeves)<\/p>\n Victoria and I played Eric Morecambe\u2019s parents in Eric and Ernie, a BBC drama she\u2019d had the idea for. When we arrived at the shoot, I didn\u2019t really know her at all. But we were staying in this art deco hotel in Morecambe, so we went out and had dinner. She was really, really quiet, didn\u2019t say anything, very unresponsive. So I started doing impressions of people sitting at the other tables. And she slowly started joining in. I\u2019d be saying: \u201cOh, do you come here often?\u201d And she\u2019d say: \u201cYes, I do, but my husband doesn\u2019t know.\u201d So our first conversations with each other were impressions of other people having conversations. We worked well together after that!<\/p>\n \u2018The film gods smiled on us\u2019 \u2026 Jim Moir and Wood in Eric and Ernie. Photograph: Laurence Cendrowicz\/(c) BBC<\/p>\n We filmed the final scene first. The script said: \u201cThe clouds open on to a big sunset.\u201d Well, it was absolutely hammering down, which didn\u2019t fit with the script at all. I said: \u201cWe\u2019re going to have to rewrite this.\u201d But then the moment we sat down, the rain stopped, the clouds parted and the sunset came out. The film gods were shining on us that day.<\/p>\n