Victoria Wood never did much straight acting. This Screen One production from 1994 was a rare outing.
Taking aim at the tabloid press and famous actors who make it big and whitewash their past.
This is a tale of two long lost sisters. Margaret Mottershead (Victoria Wood) works as a cook at a motorway service station.
Patricia Bedford (Julie Walters) is the star of top US soap Glamor. An international star, she whizzes into London to promote her book on a live television show.
Little knowing that the long lost sisters will reunite. It wrecks Patricia's carefully constructed persona and that does not include humble beginnings from Lancashire.
Margaret is left bewildered. Rebuffed by Patricia who does not want a long lost frumpy northern working class sister. She is soon disliked by her work colleagues when a tabloid journalist does a hatchet job on both sisters.
Now Patricia having to accept Margaret for appearances sake. Both go looking for their mother Vera before the journalists find her. During the course of their journey, the sisters finally bond.
Only to find a hard bitten selfish mother who cared only about herself than her children. Patricia admits to Margaret she was thrown out of her home at 15 for getting pregnant. Then fight her way to the top in a competitive industry.
This is a waspish bittersweet tale. Patricia seems to be part inspired by Joan Collins. Victoria Wood who wrote the story, surround herself with her core troop. Celia Imrie as a PA, Duncan Preston as Margaret's illiterate boyfriend.
It is a world that inspired Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV as well as her later sitcom Dinnerladies.
Taking aim at the tabloid press and famous actors who make it big and whitewash their past.
This is a tale of two long lost sisters. Margaret Mottershead (Victoria Wood) works as a cook at a motorway service station.
Patricia Bedford (Julie Walters) is the star of top US soap Glamor. An international star, she whizzes into London to promote her book on a live television show.
Little knowing that the long lost sisters will reunite. It wrecks Patricia's carefully constructed persona and that does not include humble beginnings from Lancashire.
Margaret is left bewildered. Rebuffed by Patricia who does not want a long lost frumpy northern working class sister. She is soon disliked by her work colleagues when a tabloid journalist does a hatchet job on both sisters.
Now Patricia having to accept Margaret for appearances sake. Both go looking for their mother Vera before the journalists find her. During the course of their journey, the sisters finally bond.
Only to find a hard bitten selfish mother who cared only about herself than her children. Patricia admits to Margaret she was thrown out of her home at 15 for getting pregnant. Then fight her way to the top in a competitive industry.
This is a waspish bittersweet tale. Patricia seems to be part inspired by Joan Collins. Victoria Wood who wrote the story, surround herself with her core troop. Celia Imrie as a PA, Duncan Preston as Margaret's illiterate boyfriend.
It is a world that inspired Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV as well as her later sitcom Dinnerladies.