Victoria Wood Unseen on TV (Paperback) - Jasper Rees

A treasure chest of previously unseen and unpublished material from Victoria Wood, one of Britain's most talented and loved entertainers

'There was none like her before and there's been none like her since' Dawn French

In the five years since Victoria Wood's death, one great sadness has been the realisation that we will never again be surprised by new material from her.

But as part of the research for Let's Do It, the critically acclaimed Sunday Times bestseller, her official biographer Jasper Rees uncovered a treasure chest of unseen work. From her first piece of comic prose, for the school magazine, through to material written for the great TV shows of her maturity, this joyful hoard of unreleased material spans nearly half a century.

Victoria Wood: Unseen on TV is a unique and intimate insight into the working of an irreplaceable genius of comedy.

From the first to the last, here are sketches, songs and stand-up monologues that no one else could have written, which will make you laugh in the way that only she could.

'He was a lovely man he had a lovely gap between his two front teeth. I specially noticed it cos he had a mushy pea stuck in it. He said can I take you home I said hang on I haven't finished my Tizer. So, we get home he says can I come in for a coffee. I said I haven't got any coffee but you can come in for a Horlicks if you don't mind sucking your own lumps.'

Praise for Let's Do It:

'Rees pulls off the trick of writing a brilliant tribute while also - somehow, almost - bringing Victoria Wood back to life in all her complicated glory.' Guardian

'An immersive, authoritative book' Spectator

'Impeccable' Daily Telegraph

'A must-read' Daily Mirror

'A joy' Daily Mail

About the Author

Victoria Wood was a writer, actor, director, singer, composer and stand-up comedian. She first appeared on national television in 1974 in the talent show New Faces and her debut stage play Talent was televised in 1979. In the 1980s her sketch show Wood and Walters was followed by Victoria Wood As Seen on TV and An Audience with Victoria Wood. She became the preeminent stand-up comedian of the age, selling out the Royal Albert Hall forty times while, in the nineties, creating the TV film Pat and Margaret and the sitcom dinnerladies. In 2005 she turned her much-loved soap parody Acorn Antiques into a West End musical, then wrote and starred in the wartime drama Housewife, 49. In 2014 she filmed her stage musical That Day We Sang for television. Given an OBE in 1997, she was made a CBE in 2008. Among countless other awards, her work won eight BAFTAs. Since her death in 2016 at only 62, her work has continued to pulse through the British bloodstream.

Jasper Rees is an arts journalist and author who has written for the Daily Telegraph, Sunday Times and theartsdesk.com, which he co-founded. Previous books include I Found My Horn and Bred of Heaven, both of which were abridged for Radio 4's Book of the Week, and a biography of Florence Foster Jenkins. His most recent book was Let's Do It: The Authorised Biography of Victoria Wood, which was written with the full cooperation of her family, friends and colleagues including Julie Walters, Celia Imrie, Duncan Preston, Dawn French, Anne Reid and Michael Ball.