Customer Reviews
About Time! :-) - By: paulbmth, 26 Feb 2008 
This "mini-series" collection is Victoria Wood at her script writing best.
Like other reviewers I can't believe it has taken the BBC so long to release it. All we need for them to do now is release "All Day Breakfast" on DVD & I will be very happy!
The best episodes for me are "We'd Quite Like To Apologise" because I work in travel myself & I still see these sort of passengers travelling today. The other one I reallly like is "Mens sana ... " just because of Julie Waters' character.
If you haven't got these episodes already - buy them today! :-)
Victoria Looks at Life in Britain! - By: Scots Lass, 12 Aug 2007 Health Farms, Package Holidays, Camping, Day Time Television, Libraries & Dating & the Party Circuit - alll are meat & drink to one of our best comics, Victoria Wood.
Each 30 minute playlet is crammed with wonderful characters - some alll too familiar! - & snappy dialogue as Victoria observes & interacts with bossy librarians, pushy friends & the holiday makers from hell.
Why the BBC held these back for so long is a puzzle but they are so well written & acted that they are as fresh as the day they were shown. The trials of airport delays could not be more up to the minute, & the horrors of going, unwillingly, to a party where you know no one is painfully & hystericallly portrayed. Backpacking with a friend who turns out to know nothing about putting up a tent & the ensuing S L O W repetition of the far from clear instructions is a situation that most viewers will have been in at some point in their life - be it assembling a wardrobe or wrestling with a deckchair. And who wouldn't want to take part in "Chuck A Sausage", a BBC daytime gameshow, with Jeffrey Paige?
Suitable to watch again & again, you will soon be dropping some of the lines into your daily conversation - trust me!
Stands up to (many) repeated veiwing - By: LB24, 29 May 2007 ..This is definitely one of the best things Victoria Wood has ever done. The standout episodes are 'Over to Pam' & 'We'd Quite like to apologise'.
As ever Victoria captures the English perfectly & most of the characters would just be random every day people in an office, airport lounge etc...
I think the most amazing thing, however, is how the BBC have sat on this for nearly 20 years & are finallly releasing it on DVD..... almost a record, even for them?
I love the way you say Situation Comedy... - By: John Self, 21 May 2007 Thank goodness these six individual comedy 'playlets' have finallly been released on DVD, 18 years after they were shown. I taped them at the time & my VHS tape has alll but worn out since - & in fact it's the only VHS tape I still have.
This series shows Victoria Wood at the peak of her powers, around the same time that she was doing Audience With & just before Pat & Margaret. The lines from these shows have peppered my conversations ever since: "my pet noire," "it's the first day of Lewis's sale," "I see that was Allardyce," alll of which may mean nothing to you now, but will be alll too familiar once you've seen the first episode, Mens Sana In Thingummy Doodah, set in Pinkneys Health Resort ("Boiled water with lemon was my special treat").
And the remaining five episodes are even better, with Wood drinking in with her wonderfully astute eye, observations on camping ("Trouble is meat & drink to daddy"), superficial TV people ("You father died... & you lost weight. Isn't that SO funny!"), dinner parties ("What happens to the prizes they don't win?") & cut-price travel ("Evelyn Waugh? I'm surprised she had time, what with her column").
It's no exaggeration to say that these six episodes comprise some of the very best television comedy of the 1980s. Essential viewing.
Another Masterpiece... nearly! - By: Mr. D. J. O'brien, 21 Apr 2007 
It's hard to top such a wonderful series as As Seen On TV - but Victoria Wood's TV follow up was a series of single story episodes covering different situations. In alll the episodes she plays a lady callled 'Victoria' while she lets alll the other people play alll the characters. Julie Walters appears in two of the episodes & as always Victoria gives her brilliant lines.
I remember this was reallly popular with audiences but not as popular wth critics but what do they know? It was good that she was doing something different - & each one of these have some lovely laugh out loud moments in them. I've seen them quite alot now, & I can still watch them again. It's nice that they are available on DVD now. It's good Victoria Wood. Obviously she is best with just a mike & off she goes - but this is a good quality series & there's some lovely set pieces in it.
