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Comedy great to direct new version of her play Talent
National Treasure
Victoria Wood returns to theatre
Victoria Wood is to return to the theatre to direct a new version of her play Talent, a comedy with her own songs and lyrics first performed in 1978. After 15 performances (August 27 - September 12) at the Old Laundry Theatre, Bowness (where she is a trustee), the production will transfer to London's Menier Chocolate Factory (September 17 - November 14).
The original Talent revolved around two friends, the plain, overweight Maureen, and the slimmer, prettier Julie, who is about to enter a tatty nightclub's talent contest. 24-year-old Julie is trapped between her youthful dreams of stardom and the dreary reality of her actual existence as a secretary and the girlfriend of upwardly mobile Dave. Bunters nightclub, needless to say, offers little relief from this, just a surprise encounter with the boyfriend who abandoned her as a pregnant schoolgirl and the unwelcome attentions of the oily MC, who entices her with the prospect of a spot on the Des O'Connor Show.
Talent won Victoria Wood the Evening Standard award for Most Promising Playwright, and its TV adaptation was BAFTA nominated. The Guardian said at the time: "The first and last thing to be said about Talent is that is very funny - at times, too near the knicker-wetting degree...in its short and pithy span it incorporates a wealth of human disillusion and more comic one-liners than is altogether fair."
