HERE'S Victoria Wood as you've not seen her before ... playing a wife and mother in a new wartime TV drama.

The comedian and actress came to Huddersfield to film parts of the story which will be screened this Sunday.

And it was a right pain, she admits, although she has nothing against the town.

"We had to wear this terrible underwear, which was really uncomfortable, so if you hear a crack during the show, that's my knee cracking from the stockings," grins Victoria.

"They pressed against my kneecap and were so tight that they damaged my knees - I'm still having physiotherapy," she adds.

Her self-penned story is set in Barrow, but the north west town was deemed to be too unconvincing to be used.

Locations used in Huddersfield included the Pavilion at Fartown.

Housewife, 49, is the award-winning comedienne's first ITV drama for 25 years.

It's based on the Second World War diaries of Barrow-in-Furness housewife Nella Last, and looks at how the war years changed one ordinary woman's perception of herself, her friendships and her marriage.

Victoria, 53, said: "Nella's war is not the stuff of newsreels, there are no heroics, no Vera Lynn.

"It's about a woman in her kitchen scribbling on bits of paper with a stubby pencil, trying to find the courage to face up to who she really is."

Victoria explains: "I suppose I was attracted by the idea of a woman living at that time and what she would do when her children had left home. She wasn't working, she had a very difficult marriage and she didn't have a circle of friends, so I felt she was saved by the war really."

Nella's diaries begin with her recovering from a nervous breakdown.

"She was terrified that the departure of her beloved son Cliff, who had just been called up for military service, would tip her over the edge again.

Nella follows his suggestion of writing a daily diary for the newly formed Mass Observation Office in London - an activity that proves wonderfully cathartic and allows her to discover aspects of herself that had been hidden during her marriage.

"It's about how Nella comes to life over those years, against that powerful background of losing people and damage and fear and distress, and also what happened in her marriage when she started to assert herself - that obviously sent a few shockwaves through her husband.

"There are no real parallels in my own life, although having children of 18 and 14 I'm very aware that it isn't very long before they leave home - but then I have a fantastic other life going on in my work which she didn't have."

Although Victoria says that there are few similarities between herself and Nella, she reveals that she too keeps a journal.

"It's very boring. I mean it's really, really boring! Really," she smiles.

"I can't read my own writing.

"I keep it just to remind me of things, so I can read some of it and I think, 'Oh yes, that happened'."

Victoria admits she deliberately didn't want to find out what happened to Nella after the war because she suspected it probably wouldn't be a very optimistic story.

* Housewife, 49 is on ITV1 this Sunday at 9pm.