72 Baps...

You butter and I'll slice.

(The reaction of a Victoria Wood character on hearing that a family member had died.) 

 

Several people have commented that 'celebrities' seem to be

Victoria Wood (wikipedia)

dropping like flies this spring. I just clicked on The Guardian on-line to see that Prince was the latest.

But none of the deaths has saddened me as much as that of Victoria Wood.

I walked into an empty room the other day. The television was on with its sound turned down. Across the screen was a red banner, reading: Victoria Wood dead.

I stopped in mid-stride. I yelled the news aloud. From a distant corner of the house came an answering squawk of dismay. In fact, my whole family will be squawking. They all, man and woman, old and young, loved Victoria Wood.


I saw her perform live in Birmingham early in her career, without really knowing who she was. But I laughed.

Then I started seeing her on television, at a time when it was still commonly said that 'women can't be funny.' She single-handedly proved that canard to be a right load of old...

She was a brilliant writer, a superb observer and listener, writing an abundance of terrific parts for both men and women, but especially for women.

I loved her for herself, and I love her because a fond memory is of my dad laughing until he cried at her 'Ballad of Barry and Freda.' (Otherwise known as 'Let's Do It' or 'bend me over backwards on me hostess trolley.'

But however I go on, I can't write a better appreciation than this by the Guardian's Lucy Mangan, so I'll leave you with that.

And this:-

Convert to Mrs Brown

          I gather that some very harsh and snooty things have been

Brenden O'Carroll as Mrs. Brown...

said about Brenden O'Carroll's comedy, Mrs. Brown's Boys.
          Grace Dent of The Independent, a woman whose views I usually find sound (that is, she agrees with me), said, '...To love Mrs Brown, one must be thrilled by a man in a hairnet and dinner lady tabard saying the F-word roughly once every ten minutes...'  Paul English, in The Daily Record, called it, '...lazy, end-of-pier trash rooted in the 1970s...' and said that it made him angry to see the BBC dropping standards so far. Even The Irish Independent said that it made them embarrassed to be Irish. Ouch.
          I usually give any new comedy a look, but I passed on Mrs. Brown when it was first shown in England - mostly because Mrs. Brown was played by a man in a dress and I had traumatic memories of Dick Emery. I couldn't stand the man.
          Then I read a blog in the Guardian, which I can't find now, or I'd link to it. It said that Mrs. Brown's Boys was an odd mixture of old-fashioned and new - that it played more daring tricks with breaking 'the fourth wall' than almost anything else on TV, and was far better than the critics admitted. So I thought I'd give it a go after all.

...and as himself.

        And I'm a convert to Mrs. Brown. It regularly makes me laugh out loud when I'm sitting by myself.
          Yes, what we have to call 'the F-word' flies around freely, but I don't care about that. I use it pretty frequently myself. (It's obviously news to some critics that women can and do eff and blind.) What I like about the programme is that it's bloody funny.
          Something that immediately struck me when I first watched it is, that if I hadn't already known Mrs. Brown was played by a man, I wouldn't have realised it - because Brenden O'Carroll makes an entirely convincing elderly woman. Indeed, I was recently talking with a (male) friend who had seen a couple of episodes, and I had a hard time convincing him that Mrs. Brown was, in fact, played by a man. He kept saying, 'Are you sure? Are you sure it's not an actress?'
          O'Carroll's Mrs. Brown is not a 1970s caricature of femininity, with an large dollop of 1970s contempt and dislike. Mrs. Brown smokes, drinks, speaks in a throaty voice, and swears a lot - but any critic who hasn't known an elderly woman like that has led a very sheltered life. The character is said to be based on O'Carroll's own mother, a working class Labour Party TD, of whom he seems to be proud, and with good reason. O'Carroll plays her as larger than life, but she's the engine of the plot, not the butt of the jokes. She is nosy, bossy, managing - but also sharp, shrewd, knowing, loving and intelligent.
          There was a touching moment when, anxious about one of her grown children, Mrs. Brown turned to the camera and said, "Oh, that's what it's like being a mother. No matter how old they grow, you never stop worrying about them." The live audience all went, "Aaaah." Whereupon Mrs. Brown glared at them and, indicating herself with a sweep of her hands, snapped, "It's a man in a f***k*** frock!" I fell about.
          The set is, at once, a realistic small house and an obvious set, where the actors and camera interact to play jokes. The phone in the living-room keeps ringing and cutting off before Mrs. Brown can reach it. So she sidles in and out of the door between the kitchen and living room, daring it to ring and trying to catch it out.
          The camera, trying to stay on her, swings between the two rooms, passing 'through' the dividing wall each time. But like two people trying to dodge each other in a doorway and always getting in each other's way, Mrs. Brown always manages to be on the other side of the wall from the camera. She and it play hide-and-seek for several seconds.
          If we had simply watched her bobbing in and out of the doorway, daring the phone to ring, it would have been funny - we've all done something like that. But the surrealism of the camera passing through a wall and never being able to catch her, adds another dimension of comedy.
          In another instance, Mrs. Brown has gone to the pub, but discovers that she's left her handbag at home. So she jumps up and - followed by the camera - runs across the sets, jumping cables  and saying hello to sound-men - to fetch her handbag.
          In every episode, Mrs. Brown addresses the audience directly several times, as if we were other visitors to her kitchen. The other actors, too - many of whom are O'Carroll's family - will suddenly drop out of character and make comments on each other's lives, or earlier filming mistakes. They frequently corpse, and when they do, the rest of the cast will mercilessly draw attention to the fact.
           So it's both a TV sit-com, and a stage performance - and also an obvious, admitted pretence. The actors are both the characters they're playing and themselves. And - did I mention? - it's also bloody funny.
          And that 'man in drag' matter again. Why, some superior critic asked, do women of a certain age find a man dressed up as a woman so funny? - The question asked with the clear implication that they showed a sad lack of taste by doing so.
          Well, here's my take on it. Women, especially younger women, are required to pretend they're something they're not for most of their lives. They're supposed to be slim, and dainty, so they deny themselves and diet. They're supposed to be hairless, except on their heads, so they shave and wax. They're not supposed to get old, so they use make-up and wrinkle-creams and dye their hair. Drinking, smoking and swearing are all supposed to be 'un-ladylike', even today, or there wouldn't be so much tabloid hoopla about it. After all, drunken men have been fighting and urinating in the streets since there were streets, but the Mail and Telegraph rarely make much of fuss about it.
          But the 'man in drag' act - especially when the woman portrayed is like Agnes Brown - admits a great truth. Woman are much the same as men. We're just as clumsy, graceless and stolid. Many of us are overweight. We are, naturally, almost as hairy. We drink and burp, and smoke and swear. We make filthy jokes and think filthy thoughts. Not every dear old granny smells of baking and lilac, or wants to.
          Part of the laughter, I think, is a celebration of this simple truth, a great outbreak of relief.
          And then, again - the old ones are best. What's wrong with an old joke? It made my grandparents laugh in the music-hall - it makes me laugh now.
          Mrs Brown's Boys = Bloody Funny.

A Book Festival Round At Yours...

     Starting on Monday, we're holding a book festival round at

yours...
     Well, if you want to, that is.
     You don't have to let us through the door - or, rather, through the computer. But if you like books, and e-books especially - if you like writers and writing, it might be worth taking a look.
     The Edinburgh eBook Festival 2013 starts on Monday August 12th and run every day for a fortnight. And it's free.
     This wonderful idea was writer Cally Phillips', and she has heroically

Writer Cally Phillips

organised the whole thing from her fastness up in Aberdeenshire.
     The Festival focusses on ebooks and, just as ebooks are sold all over the world in defiance of borders, so the ebook festival can be attended by anyone, from anywhere in the world, so long as they have some kind of device that can connect to the web.
     It should really be called The NOT The Edinburgh (eBook) Festival. It's got nothing to do with Edinburgh. It's virtual, it's everywhere - it's in your house and mine, on the train, on the bus, on the ferry and wherever there is wi-fi.
     But it's Cally's festival and she can call it what she likes.
     You don't have to be able to afford to get to Edinburgh, and then to stay in Edinburgh, or buy tickets. You can attend events in your jim-jams, if you like, while lying on your sofa. You can attend life-writing workshops while sitting in your socks and underpants and drinking beer. If you want. (Though Cally does ask that you don't attempt to join in while driving.)

Derek: Weather Sheep

       Every Festival has to have a big STAR, of course, to draw in the punters - and the big celebrity draw at the EeF this year is - ta-da! - Derek the Weather Sheep, fresh from his battle with Facebook, where he spoke up for the freedom and dignity of sheep everywhere.
     Besides Derek, there will be crime writers, sci-fi writers, horror writers, romance writers and writers who are hard to categorise. There will be workshops, discussions, reviews, ideas, recommends, and FREE ebooks. (And the Festival is free, did I mention?)
     There will be music, there will be laughter. The beer, wine and horlicks will flow freely, as will the chocolate (but only if you supply it.)
       Each day will start at 10am, with an overview of all the events for that day. You'll be able to lunch with an author throughout the fortnight; and each day will wind up, at 11pm, with reflections

     You can follow the Festival on Twitter at @edebookfest
     You can find more news on Facebook, here. 

     And you can find the Festival itself HERE.
    Follow the link to find out a lot more about the events on offer, and the writers involved.

     I shall be showing up myself on the 17th and 18th, along with my colleague, Alan Hess, and we'll be demonstrating our interactive reading books.
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Functional Literacy workshop with Sue Price (and Alan Hess)



This is an ‘offsite’ opportunity for you to find out more about ‘functional literacy’ and how ebooks and the online experience can open new doors for readers.  Authors Electric founder Sue Price guides you through a DIY workshop experience where you can explore the concept of  functional literacy for yourself.
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          I'll be seeing you at the Festival, I hope?