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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 255278" data-attributes="member: 23">Victoria’s EmpireEpisode Two - Ghana, Jamaica and NewfoundlandEpisode Three - New Zealand, Australia, Zambia and Victoria Falls(6th-13th May 2007)The second and third episodes continued in the same vein. I know I shouldn’t be, because it’s Victoria Wood, but I felt surprised at the level of quotable humour in the writing. I didn’t expect to laugh out loud so much:I think it’s a lovely way to get a message across. One minute Vic is in a taxi in Ghana quipping that while the taxi driver tells her the government is corrupt, at least he won’t be complaining that there are too many black people, as taxi drivers back home do. The next she’s standing before a mural depicting the history of slavery in the area and it’s no joking matter. It’s the perfect balance. Behind the humour is a serious message, brought to life in a way that’s perhaps more shocking because Vic is as blunt and frank about grim facts as she is cultural idiosyncrasies. She visits a tiny dungeon beneath a Christian chapel on a fort, into which around 300 captives would be compressed for weeks or months before being shipped to lives of slavery in sugar plantations. The detail is horrifying. The ships in which they were crammed, chained in twos on shelves could be smelt for over ten miles. The life expectancy of a plantation slave was just eight years, and that was the ones that didn’t die from dysentery or starve themselves to death. On visiting the dungeon, Vic comments:It’s fascinating to see her discussing her understandable discomfiture as a white British woman to people who live locally when reflecting on the entitlement of the British slavers. Equally, she speaks about the British cruelty towards the indigenous Maori people when taking New Zealand, and her anger at the injustice comes across. Vic is the perfect host for this series, because there’s absolutely nothing fake about her, which drives home the reality of those moments of reverence. In contrast to this, there are irreverent moments where Vic pokes gentle fun at the huge emphasis of God in the culture, or tells a Queen Victoria statue to crack a smile. Her comments when en route to meet a monarchist in Newfoundland were hilarious:While speaking to Carla, Vic’s voiceover tells us that she wishes she was allowed to ask her to speak more quickly, as she’s now late for another engagement. I love how up front she is about the stresses of documentary making. (continued) </blockquote>

Verification: Who played JR Ewing?