Indepth guide to Victoria Wood’s ‘dinnerladies’ for 2017

❉  Obverse Books announce the first indepth study of the late Victoria Wood’s popular BBC sitcom, ‘dinnerladies’.

Set in the canteen of HWD Components, a fictional factory in Manchester, ‘dinnerladies’ ran for two series between 1998 and 2000, and starred Victoria Wood, Julie Walters, Duncan Preston, Maxine Peake and Thelma Barlow.

The show won “Best New TV Comedy” at the 1999 British Comedy Awards and the Rose d’Or Press Award in the same year, and was named won “Best TV Comedy” at the British Comedy Awards in 2000.

Obverse Books is proud to announce the first in depth study of the late Victoria Wood’s seminal BBC sitcom, ‘dinnerladies’.

dinnerladies

With new interviews with key cast members, author Penny CS Andrews sets ‘dinnerladies’ in the context of the comedies around it, tracing both its lineage from the comedies of the past and its legacy to those in the future, to finally give one of the great sitcoms of our times the attention it deserves.

Asked what drew her to Wood and to dinnerladies in particular, Andrews said, “I want to write a book that gives Victoria Wood and ‘dinnerladies’ the attention they both deserve. Women in comedy, and Wood in particular, are barely written about in either trade or academic books. I want to tell the stories behind the stories, show what the programme had to say about all kinds of important topics, and do justice to a sitcom people really loved and continue to watch.

“I grew up watching Victoria Wood on telly and listening to tapes of her sketches and songs. Hers was a world I understood, full of real people and skilled use of language, warm and camp and clever. She never failed to make me laugh, cry and all the rest. ‘dinnerladies’ fetched up on telly the year I turned 18, with authentic characters both young and old, from the familiar Wood rep company, former Corrie regulars and brilliant actors new to telly. Here was the sitcom I had waited for, emerging from the ‘90s family show gloom, full of amazing women and classic lines and with a real heart. As a writer, I’ve always been compared with Victoria Wood, but I’ve never been half as great.”


❉  ‘dinnerladies’ will be published by Obverse Books in 2017.

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