A new stage show touring the UK celebrates Victoria Wood's songs

Victoria Wood was just 20 when she won New Faces half a century ago and went on to create some of Britain’s best loved songs and sketches. The comedian was a regular fixture on our TV screens for three decades sat behind her piano singing her funny, warm and witty ditties.

Victoria has remained a universally loved figure since her untimely death eight years ago from cancer at the age of 62.

From the iconic Lets Do It ( the Ballad of Barry and Freda) with its invitation to “beat me on the bottom with a Woman’s Weekly”, to the equally funny but touching numbers like It Would Never Have Worked, she won four Baftas and was nominated 14 times.

Sketch shows like Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV, sell-out stand-up comedy shows at the Albert Hall, Acorn Antiques: The Musical, the sitcom Dinner Ladies and even serious dramas like Housewife, 49, showcased the depth of her talents.

The Queen of Comedy was also the Queen of the one-liners.

She once remarked: “Life’s not fair, is it? Some of us drink champagne in the fast lane, and some of us eat our sandwiches by the loose chippings on the A597.”

But she is nevertheless best remembered for sitting at her beloved piano singing her wonderful songs. Now 21 of them will be sung once again in Looking for Me Friend: The Music of Victoria Wood by cabaret artist and super-fan Paulus in a show touring nationwide until November.

The set list includes Go With It, At the Chippy and, of course, Let's Do It. Between numbers Paulus regales the audience with some of Victoria’s classic jokes and thoughts about why he and so many others still feel so close to her.

As a journalist I was lucky enough to know Victoria well, and interviewed her many times down the years. In 2014, I was honoured to be invited to her memorial service at St James’s Church in Piccadilly, central London.

It was a genuinely emotional occasion, where the starry audience was treated to wonderful performances from some of Victoria’s close friends, including Julie Walters and Michael Ball. I first met Victoria 30 years ago on the west London set of Pat and Margaret, her brilliant film about two very contrasting, long-lost sisters, played by Julie and Victoria, who are awkwardly reunited on a Surprise, Surprise-style TV show.

I liked her immediately. Victoria, who was brought up in Bury, Lancashire, was appealingly self-deprecating, shy even, yet still dazzlingly, effortlessly funny. Within moments of meeting me, Victoria launched straight into a series of marvellous anecdotes about the problems of filming on location.

"In Blackburn, these ladies came up to the car Julie and I were sitting in and started tapping on the window. 'Eee, are you from Bury? Are you from Accrington? Do you want a brew’?”

One of the reasons why Victoria continues to be so widely adored is because she possessed this priceless ability to bring normal people to life. But importantly, her sketches about them were always done with affection, not mockery.

Victoria spoke a language that chimed with everybody, too. She flicked through the same magazines, attended the same exercise classes, tuned into the same TV programmes and went to the same shops as the rest of us.

As she told me, “I'm just articulating things that people have thought of themselves, but haven't put into words.”

Despite her extraordinary fame, she was always determined that her feet would remain firmly on the ground. She was very much one of us. Victoria was the People’s Performer.

On the set of Pat and Margaret, the film’s producer Ruth Caleb informed me: "Victoria’s one of us - whoever the ‘us' is. She connects with real people, and her humour is fed by real people. She has an honesty and a lack of superiority.”

To reinforce the point, Victoria’s legions of extremely loyal fans would not send her love letters, but hand knitted sweaters, gloves and scarves.

She revealed to me, "I've got an endless stream of knitwear coming through the post.”

It is that lovable, relatable persona that first appealed to Paulus and inspired him to create Looking for Me Friend, despite never having met her.

The performer, who has one of Victoria’s trademark yellow berets hanging up behind him during our interview, says: “She understood what we all go through.

“No matter whether we are southern or northern, or male or female, or rich or poor, we all have to pay the gas bill. We all have to deal with annoying work colleagues. We all have to deal with terrible British weather

“She had a genius way of cutting through and finding exactly what those things were.”

Paulus, 48, who is best known as one of the judges on BBC One’s talent show, All Together Now, alongside Geri Horner and Rob Beckett, says: “Victoria understood that we're all just trying to get by.

“If we're really lucky, we'll get some cake and a cup of tea, and a sit down for five minutes at the end of the day.

“I think that's what most people want: a nice slice of cake, a good cup of tea and a sit down. She just really got that.”

In addition, Victoria is still so cherished because she portrayed the sort of marginalised characters not often seen on TV.

Audiences really identify with her because even when she was extremely famous, she nevertheless appeared to be on the outside looking in.

The mother-of-two was never part of the "in" crowd - and people love her all the more for that.

From the moment he was first spellbound by her on Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV, Paulus realised that he was drawn to the fact that, “She was 'other' and was proud to be different. She didn't want to conform.”

The performer, whose real name is Paul L Martin, adds: “Her comedy spoke to outliers. It spoke to people who feel perhaps that they've been overlooked by society.

“She was here for the lumpy and the potato-faced amongst us. She wasn't interested in glamorous, skinny, rich celebrities.”

Paulus sums up his show: “It’s a love letter to Victoria. It’s about saying thank you to her. The aim is to spread joy and to offer an evening of nostalgia at a time when we are really desperate to be entertained and avoid what's going on in the real world.”

My own abiding memory of Victoria is that throughout all our many encounters down the decades she never changed. She remained warm, wise, winning and unbelievably witty.

It was an absolute pleasure to know her.

Let’s leave the last word to the Queen of Comedy herself.

I once asked Victoria why she thought she struck such a chord with audiences.

She replied: "People see something in me. My husband says it's because, `People think you're nice’.

"I once won a poll of People You'd Most Like To Live Next Door To. That gave them a laugh at home, I can tell you. The Queen Mother came second to me.

“I should imagine she was very annoyed.”

*Tickets for Looking for Me Friend: The Music of Victoria Wood are available at https://thecabaretgeek.com/