"Do You Think if She'd Lived Alma Cogan Would Have Been in the Government?"

 It's ten years since Victoria Wood died. I remember the first time I noticed that Tony Aitken, playing a standard theatre director, mutters, "Okey Cokey, Pig in a pokey!" during the "To Be An Actress" sketch, and thought, "Ah." The League also worship at the feet of Victoria. But of course they did. Their gallery of Northern grotesques were Victoria Wood's characters in a hall of mirrors. They were crueller, more nihilistic, more male. Victoria was tough, and her satire bit hard, but she always had empathy for her characters and the people they were based on. They were human beings. She gave them respect, even as they tore the heels off shoes or tried to spray perfume in her eyes. 

I love Victoria Wood. I was rewatching Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV this week, and it still works. It's still funny. It is dripping with jokes. It's so laden with laughs that I'm still finding new things in it, forty years on. She does it all: stand-up, sketches, mockumentary, parodies, satire, songs. Later on, she would invent a perfect British sitcom, then write award-winning straight drama. She started out on Opportunity Knocks and wrote plays. And she appeared as Eric Morecambe's mum, which must have been the thrill of a lifetime for her. She was a massive fan. Perhaps I could play her mum in a drama. The ultimate accolade. 

I don't really acknowledge many influences on my writing. I never set out to ape anybody. I've never properly analysed someone's style, decoded their flourishes and tics or, if I have, it hasn't worked. I think I may have tried to write in the detached, distracted style of Robert Aickman at one point, but the results were so laughably different that the influence proved undetectable. But Victoria's in there. In me. Her work may seem completely different to mine - because it is - but I can see all the things I've taken from her: the phrase making, the interest in what people actually say, the rhythm, the oddness. Knowing when to run dialogue and when to do an abrupt turn. Her maxi-minimalism. Her attention to detail. Her work ethic. I have lifted her compassion and her mercilessness. She remains a lesson in how to be funny. This is how you do it. I don't have her depth or her reach, but I've snaffled up a few crumbs of her myriad talents and made them my own. 

She's my favourite humourist of all time. And she died far too young. I love her, but she wouldn't have loved me. She didn't suffer fools.