30 of Victoria Wood's funniest jokes and one-liners

Wednesday, 18th April 2018, 11:59 am
Updated Wednesday, 18th April 2018, 12:59 pm

Victoria Wood, who passed away on 20 April 2016 following a battle with cancer, was one of the greatest and most popular British TV comics of her generation.

To mark two years since her sad passing, we've compiled some of the funniest gags from her numerous appearances, the popular sitcoms she wrote, and a few of her rather bawdy songs.

Here are 30 jokes that sum up the wit and wisdom of Victoria Wood (warning: some rude humour ahead)

Her funniest one-liners:


"I thought Coq au Vin was love in a lorry."

"A man is designed to walk three miles in the rain to phone for help when the car breaks down, and a woman is designed to say, 'you took your time' when he comes back dripping wet."

"The Italians have got opera, the Spanish have got flamenco dancing. What have we got? Weight Watchers."

"My children won't even eat chips because some clever so-and-so at school told them potato was a vegetable."

"I once went to one of those parties where everyone throws their car keys into the middle of the room. I don't know who got my moped but I've been driving that Peugeot for years."

"Foreplay is like beefburgers – three minutes on each side."

"You can't have a masseur called Harold. That's like having a member of the Royal Family called Ena."

"Everybody in my class at school was enormous. They had to stop us doing cross country running because we dented a viaduct."

[On bunking off from P.E.] "One girl never went swimming. She always had her period. In the end they sent someone round from the Guinness Book of Records."

"I just hate the fact that someone could walk in while you're watching a black and white film and think that you can't afford colour."

"I'm going North. It's a compulsion with me. Even in Tesco's I head straight for the freezer cabinets on the back wall."

"She was wearing a pair of bright red lycra cycling shorts. From the back it looked like two halves of Edam."

From 'The Ballad of Barry and Freda':

"I'm on fire/With desire/I could handle half the tenors in a male voice choir!"

"Stop pouting/Stop shouting/You know I pulled a muscle when I did that grouting/I can't do it/I can't do it tonight."

"Not bleakly/Not meekly/Beat me on the bottom with a Woman's Weekly/Let's do it/Let's do it tonight!"

From 'Pam':

"Our wedding night, I heard a cough / There was Harold in the doorway with his 'jamas off / Now look, I said, I must be blunt/I couldn't give a beggar's on the whole sex front / Not me, not my scene. I prefer a game of Rummy and an Ovaltine / Harold, dear, do get dressed / I've seen one in a book and I was not impressed!"

From Acorn Antiques:

"Sometimes I think that being widowed is God's way of telling you to come off the pill."

"Mrs Overall can't have gotten far. That's one of the blessings of osteoporosis."

"It was wartime. There was a rubber shortage. We tried painting condoms on with gravy browning, but they wasn't 100% effective."

"I'm used to the high life. These tights cost £9."

"Well that certainly sounds like a genuine Picasso. But I'd have to see it to be sure."

(Photo: BBC)

From Dinnerladies:

"Men and women have different brains. It was in the Daily Mail. Women can't fold maps, and men can't get interested in headboards."

"I was going to go on Mastermind, but I can't sit on leather."

"Why do people have to spit? That ruined Titanic for me, the spitting. The iceberg couldn't come fast enough after I saw that..."

"I've got no sex life, no frying pan and I'm halfway through a tube of toothpaste I absolutely cannot stand."

"My mother was trapped under a Blackpool tram for four and a half hours. She didn't get counselling. She got a cup of tea and two tickets to Charlie Drake."

"I didn't have sex at all, not a scrap til I was 67. And that was cos I'd no small change for the window cleaner."

"I'm sorry I haven't been a very good mother. You can't be good at everything and I was A1 with a hula hoop."

"I hope when I die I end up somewhere with a few like-minded folk. Warhol, Dali, Giant Haystacks..."