'They feel like comedy’s Dead Sea Scrolls'

Eighty of Victoria Wood’s previously unseen scripts are to be released this autumn.

News of the new book, released with the blessing of her estate,  comes five years to the day after the comedian died at the age of 62.

The scripts were discovered by writer Jasper Rees while he was researching her biography, Let’s Do It, which was released last year.

He first spoke of unearthing the treasure trove of material when he appeared at the Chortle Comedy Book Festival in November, saying: ‘When she wrote Wood and Walters [her breakthrough TV show], she wrote exactly the number of sketches which were needed, and she was very unhappy because a lot of it wasn’t very good.

‘So when she came to do As Seen On TV, which she did with [producer/director] Geoff Posner, he said "you need to overwrite" which she did, so there's a lot of unused stuff sitting there.

‘She did the same with the subsequent Christmas specials - all three of them – so there’s a lot of unused stuff and it’s all absolutely golden.’

The new collection is to be published by Trapeze on  October 28 in hardback and e-book. 

Publishing director Jamie Coleman said: ‘Time and time again, readers of the magisterial Let’s Do It said the same thing: that the joy with which they greeted this rich, detailed portrait of Victoria Wood on the page was tempered with a deep sadness at never being surprised by new material from that brain ever again.

‘What Jasper has uncovered is a unique insight into the mind of an unsurpassed comedic genius and we couldn’t be prouder to bring it to the attention of her legions of fans.’

Rees previously revealed that at the time of her death, Wood was working on a film,  called Cakes On A Train ‘a piss-take of current trends in television’ with plans for Julie Walters to star.

In an article in today’s Daily Telegraph he adds that unearthing the material felt ‘as if I’d just chanced upon comedy’s Dead Sea Scrolls’.

And he gave tantalising details of some of the other sketches he unearthed: ‘The unseen material includes more of the short exchanges she set in a library, a department store or at the doctor. There are several extra Video Box monologues which spoofed vox-pop TV of the era.

‘Longer sketches found characters seeking careers advice or marriage guidance. A dim young couple go into a travel agent. A posh but untidy novelist seeks a gruff Northern man as her cleaner.

‘Evidently some sketches went because they overlapped with others. Victoria wrote copiously about bad theatre, naff television and – connected to her own experience – compulsive eating. Some sketches may have been deemed too frank about sex.  A sketch called Tupperware Party features Wendy Winters Marital Aids.

‘Agelessly good, they can be carbon-dated only by the absence of the internet.’

• Order Victoria Wood Unseen on TV from Foyles

Published: 20 Apr 2021