The passing of British comedian Victoria Wood has generated a flood of tributes from giants not just of comedy and television, but film, music, literature, theatre and politics. British Prime Minister David Cameron called her "a national treasure loved by millions".
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Ricky Gervais, John Cleese, Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Eddie Izzard, David Walliams, JK Rowling, Hollywood director Paul Feig (Ghostbusters), uber-magician Derren Brown, TV host Esther Rantzen and the actress Minnie Driver joined a long line of luminaries paying tribute to Wood's life and comic contributions.
Watch and weep. 62 is far too young. RIP Victoria Wood. https://t.co/X45piyvWC5— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) April 20, 2016
Very sad to hear of the passing of Victoria Wood. She was a brilliantly funny woman. If you don't know her work, look her up. So sad.— Paul Feig (@paulfeig) April 20, 2016
I just found out that the amazing Victoria Wood is gone. I have to say I'm gutted and tearful. I hate cancer!— Boy George (@BoyGeorge) April 20, 2016
No tribute was more heartbreaking than that of her long-time collaborator Julie Walters who simply said: "Too heart sore to comment. The loss of her is incalculable."
Wood, who was 62, won four British Academy television awards, including acting and writing prizes for the 2006 drama Housewife, 49.
In 2008, she was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth.
Wood, as loved as she is, isn't a household name in Australia. So why the extraordinary outpouring?
Victoria Wood is being lauded by giants because she herself was a giant, not just of British comedy but of the nation's culture. Slate's culture critic Jue Thomas wrote to find an equivalent in the United States you'd have to "combine Richard Pryor, Allan Sherman, and Joan Rivers".
An Australia trio who equate to her talents might be Barry Humphries, Kath & Kim and Paul Fenech – that's how broad her comedy was.
It was perhaps the Scottish impressionist Rory Bremner who best captured the emotion of the loss and best summed up why she mattered. "No. NO.This is too much. Now lovely, warm, funny, brilliantly talented Victoria Wood has gone.Words, songs, plays, she wrote the lot," he tweeted initially, before following up with two finely tuned tributes.
VW could write dialogue like Alan Bennett, songs like Noel Coward, drama like Alan Bleasdale, and pack the Albert Hall like Billy Connolly.— Rory Bremner (@rorybremner) April 20, 2016
And wrote brilliant working class comedy without patronising- knew & loved the characters. Warm & generous. And what a stand-up!Tragic loss— Rory Bremner (@rorybremner) April 20, 2016
Bremner nailed it when he mentioned her "brilliant working class comedy without patronising". Wood saw through class – something we sniff at although it runs deep here too – and knew how to represent it to show its absurdity.
As a woman from north-west of England she was an outsider in the world of British comedy, but became a well-known stand-up, and got her own TV show in the 1980s with Victoria Wood as Seen on TV, featuring the spoof soap opera Acorn Antiques, which many consider a classic.
As Slate's June Thomas wrote: "Having grown up working class in Manchester, Wood was all too aware of the condescension Southerners so often displayed for their compatriots up North, but rather than denounce the North-South divide, she turned it into comedy so charming even Londoners couldn't help but laugh."
Angry comedy makes us laugh partly because we are uncomfortable, but there's nothing so inclusive as warm, generous comedy that makes us laugh at ourselves. Victoria Wood had this most rare of abilities.
"She was a mischievous observer of the banal; of office politics, ageing parents and the realities of love," wrote Grace Dent of The Independent.
"Wood, quite simply, got people. She celebrated the imperfect nature of the British way; how each one of us at any given time is grimly holding on."
She was also a flagbearer for female comics, a contemporary of and collaborator with the equally lauded Julie Walters, Wood paved the way for female comedy to brilliantly blossom in Britain. Think Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Jo Brand, Tracey Ullman, Kathy Burke, Caroline Aherne, Jenny Eclair, Catherine Tate, Miranda Hart and many more.
All of us women in comedy owe a huge debt of gratitude to Victoria- she paved the way— Jenny Eclair (@jennyeclair) April 20, 2016
"Victoria was a pioneer," wrote her biographer, Neil Brandwood, in the Manchester Evening News. "Without her, the explosion of female comedians we have now wouldn't have happened.
"She was the first one, a gem."
That in turn made it easier for women to be funny in Australia. If you know Victoria Wood, you'd know she made it possible for women like Fiona O'Loughlin, Julia Morris, Judith Lucy and even Julia Zemiro to flourish on television and stage.
Oh Victoria Wood. So much love for your writing your songs & the characters you created for friends. Too soon x pic.twitter.com/YBec8iqiS4— Julia Zemiro (@julia_zemiro) April 20, 2016
– with Associated Press