Victoria Wood’s unexpected Christmas turkey

It’s early on Christmas Day and even the cats aren’t fully awake while the chickens are only just starting to stir in their coop outside making the occasional querulous noise. And so, before the joyful madness of present-opening and food preparations begin, I thought I’d write about last night’s Victoria Wood special on BBC1.

Victoria Wood’s Midlife Christmas was so bad there wasn’t a laugh to be found. By the time my partner and I got halfway through the unrelenting stream of hackneyed gags, badly executed sketches and wooden performances we’d have settled for one or two slight smirks that could easily have had us mistaken for two men struggling with constipation or gas if anyone had seen us sat there on the couch, but of course we didn’t get any smirks at all. The realisation slowly dawned on us that—and this was a real shocker—Victoria’s show was the kind of turkey nobody wants to stuff let alone scoff.

Worse, there were a number of instances of disgusting homophobia. Limp-wristed, shallow and deeply sad gay male characters talking of going from one quick sexual encounter to another with “young boys” made us think we’d inadvertently eaten contaminated Quality Street chocolates that induced hallucinogenic time travel effects making us believe we’d landed back in 1973 and were, in reality, watching the late and never missed Bernard Manning in a frock.

Victoria has never been offensive to gay men before. Why start now? A huge proportion of her fan-base was, until last night, gay men. I don’t know why. Perhaps we simply have eyes and ears for spotting brilliance. We definitely have the ability to know half-baked rubbish for what it is. Victoria now stands on the brink of joining career suicides like Donna Summer and Jason Donovan in upsetting her most ardent fans beyond their ability to forgive and forget, or at the very least landing herself the role of gay icon turned outcast for some time until, if ever, she gets back on form.

Has Victoria become an avid Daily Mail reader? Have all those years of writing, producing and starring in serious dramas led to the removal of her funny bone along the way? Some long-time fans on Twitter–where the wisdom of crowds determined the show was indeed Wood’s first-ever stinker—tried to argue that it was the direction and production of the show at fault, which is only true in part. The plastic nature of the presentation certainly didn’t help but the fundamental problem was to be found in the writing, for which Victoria was entirely to blame. It wasn’t funny at all.

Even the appearance of Julie Walters failed to lift proceedings, and the ‘life after Mrs Overall’ was a tragic mistake. I’m actually glad neither Celia Imrie nor any of our other favourite actors besides Walters from previous specials were nowhere to be seen. I’d hate to see the marvellous Ms Imrie debase her own quality comic record with such dire material as was on offer last night.

And then, to add further insult to multiple injuries more commonly seen at the site of road traffic accidents, Victoria trotted out a new version of her classic Let’s Do it song that had about as much appeal as Band Aid II’s Do They Know It’s Christmas Time? and had many viewers running screaming for an exorcist, firmly believing by this point in the proceedings that Wood was now possessed by the bitter and unimaginative spirits of long-dead 60s and 70s comics. Yes, we’re back to Bernard Manning with just a soupcon of Jim Davidson.

Tellingly the High Priestess of British Female Comedy appeared bored and depressed throughout her own show. She lacked vigour and punch, instead giving every impression to this viewer that a marathon viewing at home of Countdown reruns from the 80s while dressed in a large floral print dressing gown would have been more preferable to her than turning up to the studio to record this cardboard guff of her own making.

Unfunny sketches. Nasty and brutal homophobia. Rehashed old material. Victoria, what happened to you? You could have ruined our Christmas Eve—we were looking forward to this show for weeks—but thankfully we had houmous and gruyere cheese bread twists to soothe our palates, and glasses of pink sparkly Prosecco to wash away the horror. Plus, we have Doctor Who to look forward to today. We had that one flame of hope to get us through the long dark night of seeing our favourite comic nose-diving into the kind of audience-numbing mediocrity one normally only associates with prime-time ITV1.

Victoria, please don’t subject us to this awfulness ever again. It’s the first time you’ve disappointed your fans. Still, as my beloved said, “everyone has a duff moment from time to time”–and so let’s hope you get yourself back on form, and soon.

Lots more shocked reactions and condemnations, as well as some very bizarre defensive statements from hardcore fans, can be found here.