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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 255279" data-attributes="member: 23">Victoria’s Empire(continued)There’s plenty of scope for great Victoria Wood material in the third episode where Vic visits a traditional herbalist in a market place in Zambezi marketplace. She points to various items as tells her what each item treats - tortoiseshells for bleeding (it’s set on fire and one inhales the smoke); a python skin for treating ear problems, and so on. Vic points to some feathers on a stick and asks what that is used for. Turns out it’s a feather duster that the herbalist uses to clean his stall. And it gets worse, Vic points to some items in a bowl that look like a cross between sausages and slugs. Her voiceover as he talks is hilarious:Throughout the whole three hours, there’s no sense of a default, politically correct, safe stance on certain topics. She sits through a church service that she complains is “slow” and “plodding’ and no more interesting than services in the UK. As she is served a hearty meal by her hosts, she tells us in voiceover that she really doesn’t want any - it’s too late and too hot. She visits a park but says it looks too dull to get out of the taxi and suggests that if viewers are that interested to know what it’s like they can just visit a terrible park near their home. She has opinions and she states them. But she does so in a way that’s palatable and endearing. There’s no question of Vic prostituting her own beliefs or value systems at all. She listens with an open mind, and speaks from the heart. And I adore her for it.At her last stop of Victoria Falls, Vic comments how the more she’s travelled, the less equipped she feels to do a “clever, end-of-documentary, smartypants type summing up”. So she does what she does best. She speaks from the heart, puts some stuff out there, admits she doesn’t know and leaves it with the audience to digest, to process and to decide. As a documentary, this series is fascinating. As a piece of Victoria Wood work it’s a work of brilliance, and one that shows us more of Victoria herself than almost anything else out there.</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?