Dennis Christopher George Potter (17 May 1935–7 June 1994) was an
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
dramatist, best known for
The Singing DetectiveThe Singing Detective is a critically acclaimed BBC television serial, written by Dennis Potter, starring Michael Gambon. Jon Amiel directed. The episodes were "Skin", "Heat", "Lovely Days", "Clues", "Pitter Patter", and "Who Done It"....
. His widely acclaimed television dramas mixed fantasy and reality, the personal and the social. He was particularly fond of using themes and images from
popular culturePopular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture...
.
Biography
Dennis Potter was born in
Berry HillBerry Hill is a small village in Gloucestershire, England not far from the town of Coleford.It is notable for being the birthplace of the writer,journalist and TV playwright Dennis Potter.- External links :* * * *...
,
Forest of DeanThe Forest of Dean is a geographical, historical and cultural region in the western part of the county of Gloucestershire, England. The forest is a roughly triangular plateau bounded by the River Wye to the west and north, the River Severn to the south, and the City of Gloucester to the east.The...
,
GloucestershireGloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....
. His father, Walter Edward Potter (1906–1975), was a coal miner in this rural mining area between
GloucesterGloucester is a city, district and county town of Gloucestershire in the South West region of England. Gloucester lies close to the Welsh border, and on the River Severn, approximately north-east of Bristol, and south-southwest of Birmingham....
and
WalesWales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom, bordered by England to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It is also an elective region of the European Union...
; his mother was Margaret Constance, née Wale (b. 1910).
Brought up a Protestant he attended the local Salem chapel, and went to Christchurch junior school where, in 1946, he passed the eleven-plus entrance examination to Bell's Grammar School at
ColefordColeford is a small market town in Gloucestershire, England in the west of the Forest of Dean which has a population of 8,351 . It is situated approximately four miles to the east of the Welsh border on the English side, and is close to the Wye Valley, a popular walking and canoeing area...
. He then went to
St. Clement Danes SchoolSt Clement Danes School is a mixed, voluntary-aided, comprehensive school in in Chorleywood, Hertfordshire. It has specialist status for languages and science and takes students aged 11 through to 18 .-History:...
in London, while the family lived for a time with his maternal grandfather in Hammersmith. During this time, the ten year old Potter was sexually abused by his uncle; it was an experience he would later allude to many times in his writing. Between 1953 and 1955, he did his
National ServiceNational service is a common name for mandatory or voluntary government service programs . National service was common in the 20th century, and many young people spent one or more years in such programs...
and learnt
RussianRussian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe...
at the
Joint Services School for LinguistsThe Joint Services School for Linguists was founded in 1951 by the British armed services to provide language training, principally in Russian, and largely to selected conscripts undergoing National Service...
, serving with the Intelligence Corps and subsequently at the War Office.
After national service, in 1956, he won a scholarship and went to
New College, OxfordNew College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Its official name, College of St Mary, is the same as that of the older Oriel College; hence, it has been referred to as the "New College of St Mary", and is now almost always called "New College"...
to study Politics, Philosophy and Economics, editing
Isis magazineThe Isis Magazine is the longest-running independent student magazine in England. It was established at Oxford University in 1892 . Traditionally a rival to the student newspaper Cherwell, it was finally acquired by the latter's parent company, OSPL, in the late 1990s.In its long history Isis has...
. He graduated in 1958, after obtaining a second-class degree. A tall, lean young man with red hair, he was described by his economics tutor as a ‘cross between
Jimmy PorterLook Back in Anger is a John Osborne play and 1958 movie about a love triangle involving an intelligent but disaffected young man , his upper-middle-class, impassive wife , and her haughty best friend . Cliff, an amiable Welsh lodger, attempts to keep the peace...
and
Keir HardieJames Keir Hardie, Sr. , best known as "Keir," was a Scottish socialist and labour leader, and was the first Independent Labour Member of Parliament elected to the Parliament of Great Britain. Hardie is regarded as one of the primary founders of the Independent Labour Party as well as the Labour...
’. On 10 January 1959 he married Margaret Amy Morgan (1933–1994) at Christchurch parish church. The Potters had a son, Robert and two daughters, Jane and
SarahSarah Potter is a former cricketer who played seven Test matches and eight One-Day Internationals for the England Women's team between 1984 and 1987. She currently writes on women's cricket for The Times. She was a left-arm fast bowler and a middle order batsman...
, who was to achieve fame in the 1980s as an international
cricketCricket is a bat-and-ball team sport that is first documented as being played in southern England in the 16th century. By the end of the 18th century, cricket had developed to the point where it had become the national sport of England. The expansion of the British Empire led to cricket being...
er.
After Oxford, Potter joined the
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation, usually referred to by its abbreviation as the "BBC", is the longest established and largest broadcaster in the world...
, initially as a trainee in radio and then television journalism, during which time he worked on
PanoramaIn its most general sense, a panorama is any wide-angle view of a physical space. It has also come to refer to a wide-angle representation of such a view—whether in painting, drawing, photography, film/video, or a three-dimensional model...
about the closure of coalpits in the Forest of Dean. He did not take to television journalism and left, joining the left-wing newspaper
Daily HeraldThe Daily Herald was a British newspaper, published in London from 1912 to 1964 . It ceased publication when it was relaunched as The Sun.- Origins :...
from August 1961 he became a television critic for that paper and for its successor,
The SunThe Sun may refer to -* The Sun a tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom and Ireland* Sun, the star at the center of the Solar System...
. However, he soon returned to television, writing sketches for
That Was The Week That WasThat Was The Week That Was, also known as TW3, is a satirical television comedy programme on BBC Television in 1962 and 1963, devised, produced and directed by Ned Sherrin and presented by David Frost....
with
David NathanDavid Nathan is a British-born soul music historian, journalist, author, founder of Soul Music.com singer and record producer, based in the U.K. and U.S.-Early life:...
. He also considered becoming a
LabourThe Labour Party is a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom. Founded at the start of the 20th century, it has been seen since 1920 as the principal party of the Left in England, Scotland and Wales, but not Northern Ireland, where it has only recently begun to organise again...
Member of ParliamentA Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a parliament. In many countries the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a unique title, such as senate, and thus also have unique titles for its members, such as senators. Members of...
(see below). Potter then embarked on his career as a television playwright, largely after watching the 1963
GranadaGranada Television is the United Kingdom ITV contractor for North West England and the Isle of Man.It is the only one of the original four ITA franchisees from 1954 that survived as a franchise holder into the twenty-first century. Broadcasting began on 3 May 1956, with the company originally...
version of
Leo TolstoyLeo Tolstoy, or Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy , was a Russian writer widely regarded as among the greatest of novelists. His masterpieces War and Peace and Anna Karenina represent in their scope, breadth and vivid depiction of 19th-century Russian life and attitudes, the peak of realist...
's
War and PeaceWar and Peace , a Russian novel by Leo Tolstoy, is considered one of the world's greatest works of fiction. It is regarded, along with Anna Karenina , as his finest literary achievement....
, based on
Erwin PiscatorErwin Friedrich Maximilian Piscator was a German theatre director and producer who, with Bertolt Brecht, was the foremost exponent of epic theatre, a form that emphasizes the sociopolitical content of drama, rather than its emotional manipulation of the audience or on the production's formal...
's celebrated stage production. Potter had called it ‘surely the most exciting evening that TV has ever given us’.
Television
Potter's career as a television playwright began with
The Confidence Course, an exposé of the
Dale CarnegieDale Breckenridge Carnegie was an American writer and lecturer and the developer of famous courses in self-improvement, salesmanship, corporate training, public speaking and interpersonal skills...
Institute that drew threats of litigation. Although Potter effectively disowned the play, it is notable for its use of non-naturalistic dramatic devices (in this case breaking the
fourth wallThe fourth wall is the imaginary "wall" at the front of the stage in a proscenium theatre, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play. The term also applies to the boundary between any fictional setting and its audience...
) which would become hallmarks of Potter's subsequent work. Broadcast as part of the BBC's
The Wednesday PlayThe Wednesday Play was a series of British television plays which ran on BBC1 from 1964 to 1970. Every week this drama anthology series presented a different play, usually written for television, although adaptations from other sources were also presented...
strand in 1965,
The Confidence Course proved successful and Potter was invited for further contributions. His next play,
Alice (1965), was a controversial drama chronicling the relationship between
Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pen name Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer...
and his muse Alice Liddel. Potter's most celebrated works from this period are the semi-autobiographical plays
Stand Up, Nigel Barton! and
Vote, Vote, Vote for Nigel Barton; the former the tale of a miner's son going to university in Oxford where he finds himself torn between two worlds, the latter featuring the same character standing as a Labour candidate — his disillusionment with the compromises of electoral politics is based on Potter's own experiences. Both plays received praise from critics' circles but aroused considerable tension at the BBC for their potentially incendiary critique of party politics.
Potter took another major step into controversy with
Son of ManSon of man is a television play by British playwright Dennis Potter. It premiered on The Wednesday Play in 1969 starring Irish actor Colin Blakely and was an alternative depiction of the last days of Jesus, leading to Potter being accused of blasphemy....
(
The Wednesday Play, 1969), starring Irish actor
Colin BlakelyColin George Blakely was a Northern Irish character actor. He was considered an actor of great power and presence, working chiefly in the theatre but also in television and films.-Early life:...
, an alternative view of the last days of
JesusJesus of Nazareth —also known as Jesus Christ or occasionally Jesus the Christ—is the central figure of Christianity. Within most Christian denominations...
, which led to him being accused of
blasphemyBlasphemy is the use of reference to one or more gods in a manner considered objectionable by a religious authority. It may include using sacred names as stress expletives without intention to pray or speak of sacred matters; it is also sometimes defined as language expressing disbelief or...
. The same year, Potter contributed
Moonlight on the Highway to
ITVITV is a public service network of British commercial television broadcasters, set up under the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC. ITV is the oldest commercial television network in the UK...
's
Saturday Night Theatre strand. The play centered around a young man who attempts to blot out memories of the sexual abuse he suffered as child in his obsession with the music of
Al BowllyAlbert Allick 'Al' Bowlly was a popular British Jazz singer and crooner in the United Kingdom during the 1930s, making more than 1,000 recordings between 1927 and 1941. Bowlly was born in Mozambique to Greek and Lebanese parents who met en route to Australia and moved to South Africa...
. As well as being an intensely personal play for Potter, it is notable for being his first foray in the use of popular music to heighten the dramatic tension in his work.
Casanova, Potter's first television serial, was broadcast on BBC2 in 1971. Inspired by William R. Trask's 1966 translation of
CasanovaGiacomo Girolamo Casanova de Seingalt was a Venetian adventurer and author. His main book Histoire de ma vie , part autobiography and part memoir, is regarded as one of the most authentic sources of the customs and norms of European social life during the 18th century.He was so famous as a...
's memoirs (
Histoire de ma vieHistoire de ma vie is both the memoir and autobiography of Giacomo Casanova, a famous 18th century Italian adventurer...
), Potter recast the Venetian libertine as a man haunted by his dependency on women. The serial was told using a non-lineal plot structure and, as the critic Graham Fuller noted in
Potter on Potter, "as chamber-piece and identity quest,
Casanova strongly anticipates [later works such as]
The Singing DetectiveThe Singing Detective is a critically acclaimed BBC television serial, written by Dennis Potter, starring Michael Gambon. Jon Amiel directed. The episodes were "Skin", "Heat", "Lovely Days", "Clues", "Pitter Patter", and "Who Done It"....
." It did, however, prove controversial for its frank depiction of nudity and was criticized for its sexual content. Controversy also dogged another play,
Brimstone and TreacleBrimstone and Treacle is a 1976 play by Dennis Potter which is best known via adaptations as a 1976 BBC television play and a 1982 film co-starring Sting.The play follows the fortunes of a middle-aged middle-class couple living in a North London suburb...
(
Play for TodayPlay for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. Over three hundred original plays, most between an hour and ninety minutes in length, were transmitted during the fourteen-year period the series aired, and it is by far the...
, 1976), which was withheld by the BBC for many years due to concerns over the depiction of the rape of a disabled woman. It was eventually broadcast on
BBC2
in 1987, although a 1982 film version had been made, with Sting in the leading role (see below).
Potter's groundbreaking
Blue Remembered HillsBlue Remembered Hills is a television play by Dennis Potter, originally broadcast on January 30th 1979 as part of the BBC's Play for Today series....
was first shown on the BBC on 30 January 1979; it returned to the British small screen at Christmas 2004, and again in the summer of 2005, showcased as part of the winning decade (1970s) having been voted by
BBC FourBBC Four is a BBC television channel available to digital television viewers in the UK. The part successor to BBC Knowledge. BBC Four launched on 2 March 2002....
viewers as the golden era of British television. The adult actors playing the roles of children were
Helen MirrenDame Helen Mirren, DBE is an English actor. She has won an Academy Award, four SAG Awards, four BAFTAs, three Golden Globes and four Emmy Awards during her career.-Family:...
,
Janine DuvitskiJanine Duvitski is an English actress, known for her roles as Jane Edwards in Waiting For God and Pippa Trench in One Foot In The Grave. She created the role of Angela in Mike Leigh's play Abigail's Party.-Early life:...
,
Michael ElphickMichael John Elphick was an English actor, noted for his deep-lined, ruggedly handsome features.Elphick was known primarily in the UK for his trademark croaky voice and his work on British television, in particular his roles as the eponymous private investigator in the ITV series Boon and later...
,
Colin JeavonsColin Jeavons is a Welsh character actor.- Career :Jeavons is known for his part as Max Quordlepleen in the BBC television serial of Douglas Adams' space opera comedy, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, or the part of the undertaker, Shadrack, in the television situation comedy written by Keith...
,
Colin WellandColin Welland lived in Boaler Street, Kensington, Liverpool, before moving to Newton-le-Willows, Lancashire as a child. His parents were Jack and Nora Williams...
,
John BirdJohn Bird is an English satirist, actor and comedian.-Early life:Born in Bulwell, Nottingham, England, Bird briefly joined the Socialist Party of Great Britain, while still at school...
, and
Robin EllisRobin Ellis is an English actor who is best remembered as having starred in both Poldark mini-series on television, playing Captain Ross Poldark...
. It was directed by the late
Brian GibsonBrian Gibson was an English film director.-Biography:Born in Reading, Berkshire, he studied Natural Sciences at St. Catharine's College, Cambridge graduating with an upper-second, and then History of Science at Darwin College, Cambridge...
. The moralistic theme was
the child is father of the man.
Potter had used the dramatic device of adult actors playing children before. However, the powerful imagery of
Blue Remembered HillsBlue Remembered Hills is a television play by Dennis Potter, originally broadcast on January 30th 1979 as part of the BBC's Play for Today series....
lives on with the generation that first saw it, not least because of its uneasy, claustrophobic feeling provoking elements of xenophobia and a consideration of fearing the
outsider, such was the prevalence of the post-war mood within British society. In 1980 he received a lucrative deal with LWT to write a series of six single plays for ITV, with a further three written by
Jim AllenJames "Jim" Allen was a socialist playwright from England, best known for his collaborations with Ken Loach.- Early life :...
. Problems with funding led to only three of these plays being produced: the BAFTA-winning
Blade on the Feather,
Rain on the Roof and
Cream in My Coffee, which won Grand Prize at the
Prix ItaliaThe Prix Italia is a international Italian television film and radio-broadcasting award. It was establed in 1948 by RAI - Radiotelevisione Italiana in Capri. Initially for radio, it was extended to cover television in 1957.-External links:* * from IMDB...
.
Potter continued to make news as well as winning critical acclaim for drama serials such as
Pennies From HeavenPennies From Heaven is a 1978 BBC television drama serial by the highly-regarded television playwright Dennis Potter. The title is taken from a famous song of the same name written by Johnny Burke and Arthur Johnston...
(1978)–which brought
Bob HoskinsRobert William "Bob" Hoskins, Jr. is an English actor, known for playing Cockney rough diamonds, psychopaths and gangsters, and for his performances in family films such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit , Hook , and Super Mario Bros. .-Early life:Hoskins was born in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, England,...
into the limelight–and
The Singing DetectiveThe Singing Detective is a critically acclaimed BBC television serial, written by Dennis Potter, starring Michael Gambon. Jon Amiel directed. The episodes were "Skin", "Heat", "Lovely Days", "Clues", "Pitter Patter", and "Who Done It"....
(1986), which did the same for
Michael GambonSir Michael John Gambon, CBE is an Olivier Award- and BAFTA Award-winning Irish-British actor who has worked in theatre, television, and film...
. He also wrote the script for the widely praised but seldom seen 1985 miniseries of
F. Scott FitzgeraldFrancis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are evocative of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost Generation" of the Twenties...
's
Tender Is the NightTender Is the Night is an English language novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It was first published in Scribner's Magazine between January-April, 1934 in four issues. It is ranked #28 on the Modern Library's list of the 100 Greatest Novels of the 20th Century.In 1932, Fitzgerald's wife Zelda Sayre...
with
Mary SteenburgenMary Nell Steenburgen is an American actress.-Personal life:Steenburgen was born in Newport, Arkansas, the daughter of Nell, a school-board secretary, and Maurice Steenburgen, a freight-train conductor who worked at the Missouri Pacific Railroad. Steenburgen grew up in North Little Rock, Arkansas...
as Nicole Diver.
Potter's TV miniseries,
BlackeyesBlackeyes was a multi-layered novel which was later adapted as a TV drama by British playwright Dennis Potter. The TV version was highly controversial at the time....
(1989, also a novel- see below), a drama about a
fashion modelthumb|200px|Alesya Nazarova modeling a dress by [[bebe stores|bebe]]A model , sometimes called a mannequin, is a person who is employed for the purpose of displaying and promoting fashion clothing or other products and for advertising or promotional purposes or who poses for works of art.Modeling...
was reviewed as self-indulgent by some critics, and accused of contributing to the
misogynyMisogyny is hatred of women or girls. Misogyny comes from Greek misogunia from misos and gynē . It is parallel to misandry—the hatred of men or boys. Misogyny is also comparable with misanthropy which is the hatred of humanity in general...
Potter claimed he intended to expose.. The critical backlash against Potter following
Blackeyes led to him being nicknamed 'Dirty Den' by the Briish tabloid press, and resulted in a long period of reclusion from television. In 1990
Mary WhitehouseMary Whitehouse CBE was a British campaigner for what she perceived to be values of morality and decency derived from her Christian beliefs. She began by focusing her efforts on the broadcast media, which she regarded as highly influential, and where she felt these values were particularly lacking...
, a long time critic of Potter, claimed on BBC Radio that Potter had been influenced by witnessing his mother engaged in adulterous sex. Potter's mother won substantial damages from the BBC and
The Listener, who were reportedly unimpressed by Whitehouse's claim to have had a blackout on air and subsequently to have had no recollection of her words. In 1992 he directed a film,
Secret Friends (from his novel,
Ticket to Ride), starring
Alan BatesSir Alan Arthur Bates CBE was a British actor of stage, screen and television.-Early life:Bates was born in Allestree, Derby, England on 17 February 1934, the eldest of three sons of Florence Mary , a homemaker and a pianist, and Harold Arthur Bates, an insurance broker and a cellist...
. The executive producers were Robert Michael Geisler and John Roberdeau, who later produced
Terrence MalickTerrence "Terry" Malick is an American filmmaker, screenwriter and producer. In a career spanning decades, Malick has directed one short film and four feature-length films....
’s
The Thin Red LineThe Thin Red Line is a 1998 war film which tells a fictional story of United States forces during the Battle of Guadalcanal in World War II with the focus on the men in C Company, most notably Private Witt and his conflicted feelings about fighting in the war, Colonel Tall and his desire to win...
.
Secret Friends premiered in New York at the
Museum of Modern ArtThe Museum of Modern Art is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, USA, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been singularly important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the...
as the gala closing of the
Museum of Television & RadioThe Paley Center for Media, formerly The Museum of Television & Radio and The Museum of Broadcasting, founded in 1975 by William S...
’s week-long Potter retrospective. Potter proposed to write an "intermedia" stage play for Geisler-Roberdeau based on
William HazlittWilliam Hazlitt was an English writer, remembered for his humanistic essays and literary criticism, and as a grammarian and philosopher. He is now considered one of the great critics and essayists of the English language, placed in the company of Samuel Johnson and George Orwell, but his work is...
’s
Liber Amoris, or The New Pygmalion, but he died before it could be commenced. Potter's romantic comedy
Lipstick on Your CollarLipstick on Your Collar is a 1993 British television serial written by Dennis Potter, originally broadcast on Channel 4. It is also notable for being Ewan McGregor's first major role.-Plot:...
(1993) was a return to more conventional themes and the familiar format of six hour-long episodes, but did not become the desired popular success, although it helped launch the career of
Ewan McGregorEwan Gordon McGregor is a Scottish actor, singer, and adventurer who has had success in mainstream, indie and art house films...
.
Film
In 1978,
Herbert RossHerbert Ross was an American film director, producer, choreographer and actor.-Early life and career:Born Herbert David Ross in Brooklyn, New York, he made his stage debut as Third Witch with a touring company of Macbeth in 1942...
was shooting
NijinskyNijinsky is a 1980 American biographical film directed by Herbert Ross. Hugh Wheeler, whose screenplay centers on the later life and career of Vaslav Nijinsky, used the legendary dancer's personal diaries and his wife's 1933 book Life of Nijinsky as his primary source materials.-Synopsis:The film...
at
Shepperton StudiosShepperton Studios is a film studio in Shepperton, Surrey, England with a history dating back to 1931. A part of the Pinewood Group along with Pinewood and Teddington Studios, it has produced many notable films.-History:...
and invited Potter to write the screenplay for his next project
Unexpected Valleys. After watching
Pennies from Heaven on television one evening, Ross contacted Potter about the prospect of adapting it for the cinema. The project was launched at MGM as an 'anti-musical' with
Steve MartinStephen Glenn "Steve" Martin is an American actor, comedian, writer, playwright, producer, musician, and composer. He was raised in Southern California in a Baptist family, where his early influences were working at Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm and working magic and comedy acts at these and...
and
Bernadette PetersBernadette Peters is an American actress and singer from New York City. Over the course of a career that has already spanned five decades, she has starred in musical theatre, films and television, as well as performing in solo concerts and recordings...
in the lead roles. According to Potter, the studio demanded continual rewrites of the script and made significant cuts to the film after initial test screenings. The film was released in 1981 to mixed critical reaction and was a box office disaster. Potter was, however, nominated for the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar that year alongside
Harold PinterHarold Pinter, CH, CBE , was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor, director, political activist and poet. He was among the most influential British playwrights of modern times...
for
The French Lieutenant's WomanThe French Lieutenant's Woman is a 1981 film directed by Karel Reisz and adapted by playwright Harold Pinter. It is based on the novel of the same title by John Fowles...
.
Having already adapted
Brimstone and Treacle for the stage after the television production was banned by the BBC, Potter set about writing a film version. Directed by
Richard LoncraineRichard Loncraine is an Emmy-winning and BAFTA-nominated British film and television director.Loncraine received early training in the features department of the BBC, including a season directing items for Tomorrow's World...
, who also directed Potter's
Blade on the Feather at LWT, the film featured a soundtrack by The Police while Sting played the role of the devil; Denholm Elliot resumed his role from the original television production playing Mr Bates while
Joan PlowrightJoan Ann Olivier, Baroness Olivier, DBE , better known as Dame Joan Plowright, is an English actress. She was awarded a CBE in 1970 and was made a Dame in the New Year's Honours of 2004.-Early life:...
took the
Patricia LawrencePatricia Lawrence was a British actress.She may have been best-known for playing the formidable Sister Ulrica, a Dutch prisoner of war in the BBC television drama Tenko.-Credits:Other TV credits include:* Softly, Softly* Van der Valk* Upstairs, Downstairs* Angels*...
role as Mrs Bates. Although a British film made by Potter's own production company (Pennies Productions), the casting of Sting piqued the interest of American investors. As a result, references to Mr Bates' membership of the
National FrontThe name National Front is used by a number of political parties and coalitions.* Albania — National Front * Belarus — Belarusian National Front* Belgium — Front National * Botswana — Botswana National Front...
and a scene discussing racial segregation were omitted —as were many of the non-naturalistic flourishes that dominated the television production— although, ironically, the film was much more graphic in its depiction of sexual abuse and rape. The film was not a box office success, although Sting's cover of "
Spread a Little HappinessSpread a Little Happiness is a song by English musical comedy composer Vivian Ellis from his 1929 musical Mr. Cinders. Ellis was suffering from a fever of 103 degrees when he wrote this song....
" reached number sixteen in the
UK Singles ChartThe UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record industry. The full chart contains the top 200 singles based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 of this list...
.
Potter's screenplay for
Gorky ParkGorky Park, the 1983 movie based on the novel Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith, was directed by Michael Apted from the screenplay by Dennis Potter...
(1983) earned him an
Edgar AwardThe Edgar Allan Poe Awards , named after Edgar Allan Poe, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America...
from the
Mystery Writers of AmericaMystery Writers of America is an organization for mystery writers, based in New York.The organization was founded in 1945 by Clayton Rawson, Anthony Boucher, Lawrence Treat, and Brett Halliday....
, although it emerged a shadow of
Martin Cruz SmithMartin Cruz Smith was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1942. He originally wrote under the name Martin Smith only to discover there were other writers with the same name. His agent Knox Burger asked Smith to add a third name and Smith chose Cruz, the shortest name in his family...
's
original novelGorky Park is a 1981 crime novel written by Martin Cruz Smith set in the Soviet Union. It follows Arkady Renko, a chief investigator for the Militsiya, who is assigned to a case involving three corpses found in Gorky Park, an amusement park in Moscow, who have had their faces and fingertips cut off...
. He also wrote the screenplay for
DreamchildDreamchild is a 1985 drama film produced by Verity Lambert, directed by Gavin Millar and written by Dennis Potter. It stars Coral Browne, Ian Holm, Peter Gallagher, Nicola Cowper and Amelia Shankley and is a fictionalized account of Alice Liddell, the child who inspired Lewis Carroll's famous...
(1985), a cinematic adaptation of his earlier
Alice script. In her last film role,
Coral BrowneCoral Browne was an Australian stage and screen actress.-Career:She was born Coralie Edith Brown, the only daughter of a restaurant-owner, in Footscray, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia, where she studied at the National Gallery Art School. Her amateur debut was as Gloria in Shaw's You Never Can...
portrayed the elderly Alice Hargreaves who recalls in flashbacks her childhood when she was the inspiration for
Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pen name Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer...
's
Alice in Wonderland. In 1987 he adapted his television play
Schmoedipus (1975) for the cinema. The ensuing film,
Track 29Track 29 is a 1988 film directed by Nicolas Roeg. It was produced by George Harrison's HandMade Films with Rick McCallum. The film was nominated for and won a few awards at regional film festivals. The writer, Dennis Potter, adapted his own 1974 television play, Schmoedipus, changing the setting...
, directed by
Nicolas RoegNicolas Jack Roeg, BSC is an English film director and cinematographer. Contributing to the visual look of Lawrence of Arabia and Roger Corman's The Masque of the Red Death, and co-directing Performance, he would later become the guiding force behind such landmark films as Walkabout, Don't Look...
, was the last project Potter would pursue in Hollywood. The film has never been repeated on American television, though it is known that one copy is extant in the New York Film Museum, with the lead role played by Tim Curry.
Potter's reputation within the American film industry following the box office disappointments of
Pennies from Heaven and
Gorky Park ultimately led to a difficulty receiving backing for his projects. Potter is known to have written adaptations of
The Phantom of the OperaThe Phantom of the Opera is a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux. It was first published as a serialization in Le Gaulois from September 23, 1909 to January 8, 1910...
,
The Mystery of Edwin DroodThe Mystery of Edwin Drood is the final novel by Charles Dickens. The novel was left unfinished at the time of Dickens' death and thus how it might have ended remains unknown. The novel is named after Edwin Drood but it mostly tells the story of his uncle, a choirmaster named John Jasper, who is...
,
The White HotelThe White Hotel is a novel written by the English poet, translator and novelist D. M. Thomas. It was published in 1981 by The Viking Press and won The Cheltenham Prize.-Summary :...
and his own 1976 television play
Double DareDouble Dare is a television play by Dennis Potter, first broadcast on BBC One in 1976 as part of the Play for Today strand. The play is notable for its exploration of the link between author and viewer, one of Potter's major themes, and is referenced several times in his later work...
: all reaching the preproduction stage before work was suspended. More lucky was
Mesmer (1993), Potter's take on the life of 19th century pseudo-scientist Franz Anton Mesmer, although the completed film has yet to receive a European release.
The last film Potter actively worked on was
Midnight Movie (1994), an adaptation of Rosalind Ashe's novel
Moths. The film starred
Louise GermaineLouise Germaine is an English actress and glamour model best known for her appearance as Sylvia Berry in the 1993 Dennis Potter miniseries Lipstick on Your Collar....
and
Brian DennehyBrian Mannion Dennehy is an American actor of film, stage and screen.-Early years:Dennehy was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the son of Hannah and Edward Dennehy, who was a wire service doctor for the Associated Press; he has two brothers, Michael and Edward...
(who had appeared in
Lipstick on Your Collar and
Gorky Park, respectively) and was directed by Renny Rye. Unable to secure financing from the Arts Council, Potter invested half a million pounds into the production; BBC Films provided the rest of the capital. The film was not given a cinema release due to a lack of interest from distributors and remained unseen until Potter's death. It was finally broadcast on BBC2 in November 1994 as part of their "Screen Two" season alongside a remake of his 1967 play
Message for PosterityWiping is a colloquial term for action taken by radio and television production and broadcasting companies, in which old audiotapes, videotapes and telerecordings , are erased, reused, or destroyed after several uses...
.
A film version of
The Singing DetectiveThe Singing Detective is a 2003 film based on the BBC miniseries of the same name, a work by Dennis Potter. It stars Robert Downey Jr. and Mel Gibson.-Plot:...
, based on Potter's own adapted screenplay, was released in 2003 by
Icon ProductionsIcon Productions LLC is an American independent production company founded in August 1989 by actor/director Mel Gibson and Australian producing partner Bruce Davey....
.
Robert Downey Jr.Robert John Downey, Jr. is an American actor, film producer, and musician. Downey made his screen debut at the age of five when he appeared in one of his father's films, and has worked consistently in film and television ever since. During the 1980s, he had roles in a series of coming of age films...
played the lead alongside Robin Wright-Penn and
Mel GibsonMel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, AO is an American Australian actor, film director and producer and screenwriter. Born in Peekskill, New York, Gibson moved with his parents to Sydney when he was 12 years old and later studied acting at the National Institute of Dramatic Art.After appearing in the Mad...
. Gibson also acted as producer.
Literary journalism and novels
Potter published his first non-fiction work,
The Glittering Coffin, in 1960 through the
Gollancz PressSir Victor Gollancz was a British publisher, socialist, and humanitarian.-Early life:Born in Maida Vale, London, he was the son of a wholesale jeweller and nephew of Rabbi Professor Sir Hermann Gollancz and Professor Sir Israel Gollancz; after being educated at St Paul's School, London and taking...
. The book was a rumination on the changing face of England in the prosperity following the end of the war years. It was followed in 1962 by
The Changing Forest: Life in the Forest of Dean Today. Based on the "Between Two Rivers" documentary Potter had made for the BBC's
Panorama strand in 1960, the book is a study of class and social mobility that demonstrates an early fascination with the effects of the mass media on British cultural life. Apart from his newspaper columns for the
Daily Herald and the pre-
MurdochKeith Rupert Murdoch, AC , usually known as Rupert Murdoch, is an Australian-born American global media mogul. He owns media outlets and is a major shareholder, chairman and managing director of News Corporation ....
Sun, Potter abandoned political writing in the late 1960s in favour of pursuing fictional subjects.
Hide and Seek (1973) was a meta-fictional novel exploring the relationship between reader and author and contains a central protagonist, 'Daniel Miller', who is convinced he is the plaything of an omniscient author. This concept forms the core of Potter's next two novels, and portions of
Hide and Seek would reappear in several of his television plays (most notably
Follow the Yellow Brick RoadFollow the Yellow Brick Road is a television play by Dennis Potter, first broadcast in 1972 as part of BBC Two's The Sextet strand: a series of plays featuring the same six actors. The play is notable for its central theme of popular culture becoming the inheritor of religious scripture, which...
and
The Singing Detective, respectively).
Ticket to Ride (1986) was written between drafts of
The Singing Detective and concerns a
herbithologistIn botany, a herbarium is a collection of preserved plant specimens. These specimens may be whole plants or plant parts: these will usually be in a dried form, mounted on a sheet, but depending upon the material may also be kept in alcohol or other preservative...
who is unable to make love to his wife unless he imagines her as a prostitute. This was followed in 1987 by
Blackeyes: a study of a model whose abusive uncle, a writer, has stolen details of his niece's experiences in the glamour industry as the basis for his latest
potboilerPotboiler or pot-boiler is a term used to describe a poor quality novel, play, opera, or film, or other creative work that was created quickly to make money to pay for the creator's daily expenses . Authors who create potboiler novels or screenplays are sometimes called hack writers...
.
To tie-in with the release of the
MGMMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., or MGM, is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B...
production of
Pennies from Heaven in 1981, Potter wrote a novelisation of the screenplay. Potter turned down the option of writing a novelisation for the film version of
Brimstone and Treacle, allowing his daughter Sarah to write it instead.
Stage plays
Although Potter only produced one play exclusively for theatrical performance (
Sufficient Carbohydrate, 1983 - later filmed for television as
Visitors in 1987), he adapted several of his television works for the stage.
Vote, Vote, Vote for Nigel Barton, which featured material from its sister-play
Stand Up, Nigel Barton, was premiered in 1966, while
Only Make Believe, which incorporated scenes from
Angels Are So Few, made the transition to the stage in 1974.
Son of Man appeared in 1969 with
Frank FinlayFrancis "Frank" Finlay, CBE is a British stage, film and television actor.- Personal life :Finlay was born in Farnworth, Lancashire, the son of Margaret and Josiah Finlay, a butcher. A devout Catholic, he belongs to the British Catholic Stage Guild. He was educated at St...
in the title role (Finlay would also play Casanova in Potter's 1971 serial) and was recently restaged by the
Northern BroadsidesNorthern Broadsides is a theatre company formed in 1992 and based at Dean Clough Mill in Halifax, West Yorkshire, England. The founder and artistic director is Barrie Rutter. The company performs in Halifax and on tour, a mix of Shakespeare and other productions. Music is specially written for...
for a major UK tour.
Brimstone and Treacle was adapted for the stage in 1977 after the BBC refused to screen the original television version. The play text for
Blue Remembered Hills was first published in the collection
Waiting for the Boat (with
Joe's Ark and
Blade on the Feather) in 1984 and has since enjoyed several successful stage performances.
Final works
His final two serials were
KaraokeKaraoke is a British television drama written by Dennis Potter with the knowledge that he was dying from cancer of the pancreas.It forms a pair with the serial Cold Lazarus...
and
Cold LazarusCold Lazarus is a four-part British television drama written by Dennis Potter with the knowledge that he was dying of cancer of the pancreas....
(two related stories, both starring
Albert FinneyAlbert Finney, Jr. is an English actor. Hailed as a "second Olivier" as a young stage actor in the late 1950s, Finney rose to film star fame in the early 1960s...
as the same principal character, one set in the present and the other in the far future). They were aired posthumously in the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
as part of a rare collaboration between the BBC and rival Channel 4 in accordance with Potter's wishes.
Unfortunately, a side effect of his last wishes for the BBC and Channel 4 to collaborate on these works has been that the copyright and further usage rights to the works has remained unclear. For this reason neither
Karaoke nor
Cold Lazarus is available on DVD. However, both are presently being shown as part of the Channel 4 on demand options, available through the Channel 4 website and Virgin Media's 'TV Choice On Demand' interactive service.
Style and themes
Potter's work is distinctive for its use of non-naturalistic devices. The 'lip-sync' technique he developed for his "serials with songs" (
Pennies from Heaven;
The Singing Detective and
Lipstick on Your Collar), extensive use of
flashbackA flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened prior to the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
and nonlinear plot structure (
Casanova;
Late Call), direct to camera address (
Vote, Vote, Vote for Nigel Barton) and works where "the child is father to the man", in which he used adult actors to play children, (
Stand Up, Nigel Barton;
Blue Remembered Hills) have all become Potter trademarks. They are frequently deployed in works where the line between fantasy and reality becomes blurred, often as a result of the influence of popular culture (Willie, the Wild West obsessive played by
Hywel BennettHywel Thomas Bennett is a Welsh actor.Bennett was born in Garnant, Carmarthenshire, Wales, the son of Sarah Gwen and Gorden Bennett. Raised in London from an early age, he attended Henry Thornton Grammar School, Clapham and RADA.Bennett is best known for his appearances on British television. He...
in
Where the Buffalo Roam) or from a character's apparent awareness of their status as a pawn in the hands of an omniscient author (the actor Jack Black (Denholm Elliot) in
Follow the Yellow Brick RoadFollow the Yellow Brick Road is a television play by Dennis Potter, first broadcast in 1972 as part of BBC Two's The Sextet strand: a series of plays featuring the same six actors. The play is notable for its central theme of popular culture becoming the inheritor of religious scripture, which...
).
Following in this spirit of non-naturalism, Potter's characters are frequently "doubled up"; either by
using the same actor to play two different rolesA doppelgänger is the ghostly double of a living person, a sinister form of bilocation.In the vernacular, the word "doppelgänger" has come to refer to any double or look-alike of a person. The word is also used to describe the sensation of having glimpsed oneself in peripheral vision, in a...
(
Kika MarkhamKika Markham is an English actress.She is the daughter of actor David Markham and has led a long career in the cinema, television, and theatre as a respected actress...
as the actress and escort in
Double DareDouble Dare is a television play by Dennis Potter, first broadcast on BBC One in 1976 as part of the Play for Today strand. The play is notable for its exploration of the link between author and viewer, one of Potter's major themes, and is referenced several times in his later work...
;
Norman RossingtonNorman Rossington was an English actor best remembered for his roles in The Army Game, the Carry On films and the Beatles film A Hard Day's Night.-Early life:...
as Lorenzo the gaoler and the English traveller in
Casanova) or two different actors whose characters'
destinies and personalities appear interlinkedDualism denotes a state of two parts. The word's origin is the Latin duo, "two" . The term 'dualism' was originally coined to denote co-eternal binary opposition, a meaning that is preserved in metaphysical and philosophical duality discourse but has been diluted in general or common usages.-Moral...
(Bob Hoskins and
Kenneth ColleyKenneth Colley is a British actor. A long-time character actor, he came to wider prominence through his role as Admiral Piett in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi....
as Arthur and the accordion man in
Pennies from Heaven; Rufus (
Christian RodskaChristian Rodska is an English actor who has appeared in many television and radio series and narrated a number of audiobooks...
) and Gina the bear in
A Beast With Two BacksA Beast With Two Backs is a television play by Dennis Potter, first broadcast on BBC One in 1968 as part of The Wednesday Play strand. The play is a fictional account of a true event that happened in the Forest of Dean in the 1890s when four Frenchmen came over the border from Gloucester with a...
).
One major motiff in Potter's writing is the concept of betrayal, and this takes many forms in his plays. Sometimes it is personal (
Stand Up, Nigel Barton), political (
Traitor;
Cold LazarusCold Lazarus is a four-part British television drama written by Dennis Potter with the knowledge that he was dying of cancer of the pancreas....
) and other times it is sexual (
A Beast With Two Backs;
Brimstone and TreacleBrimstone and Treacle is a 1976 play by Dennis Potter which is best known via adaptations as a 1976 BBC television play and a 1982 film co-starring Sting.The play follows the fortunes of a middle-aged middle-class couple living in a North London suburb...
). In
Potter on Potter, published as part of
Faber and FaberFaber and Faber, often abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in the UK, notable in particular for publishing a great deal of poetry and for its former editor T. S. Eliot. Faber has a rich tradition of publishing a wide range of fiction, non fiction, drama, film and music books,...
's series on
auteurThe term auteur is used to describe film directors who are considered to have a distinctive, recognizable style, because they repeatedly return to the same subject matter, habitually address a particular psychological or moral theme, employ a recurring visual and aesthetic style, or ...
s, Potter told editor Graham Fuller that all forms of betrayal presented in literature are essentially religious and based on "the old, old story"; this is evoked in a number of works, from the use of popular songs in
Pennies from Heaven to Potter's
gnosticGnosticism refers to diverse, syncretistic religious movements in antiquity consisting of various belief systems generally united in the teaching that humans are divine souls trapped in a material world created by an imperfect god, the demiurge; this being is frequently identified with the...
retelling of
JesusJesus of Nazareth —also known as Jesus Christ or occasionally Jesus the Christ—is the central figure of Christianity. Within most Christian denominations...
' final days in
Son of Man.
The "Pinteresque" device of a disruptive outsider entering a claustrophobic environment is another recurring theme. In plays where this occurs, the outsider will commit some liberating act of sex (
Rain on the Roof) or violence (
Shaggy Dog) that gives physical expression to the unsublimated desires of the characters in that setting. While these more malevolent visitors are often supernatural beings (
Angels Are So Few), intelligence agents (
Blade on the Feather) or even figments of their host's imagination (
Schmoedipus), there are also —rare— instances of benign visitors whose presence resolves personal conflicts rather than exploits them (
Joe's Ark;
Where Adam StoodWhere Adam Stood is a television play by Dennis Potter, first broadcast on BBC Two in 1976. It is a free adaptation of Edmund Gosse's autobiographical book Father and Son .-Synopsis:...
).
Parliamentary aspirations
Potter stood as the Labour Party candidate for
Hertfordshire EastEast Hertfordshire was a parliamentary constituency in the county of Hertfordshire. It returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.-History:...
, a safe
Conservative PartyThe Conservative and Unionist Party, more commonly known as the Conservatives, the Conservative Party, or Tory Party is a conservative political party in the United Kingdom...
seat, in the
1964 general electionThe United Kingdom general election of 1964 was held on 15 October 1964, more than five years after its predecessor, and thirteen years after the Conservative Party had first taken power...
against the incumbent Derek Colclough Walker-Smith. By the end of the campaign, he claimed that he was so disillusioned with party politics he did not even vote for himself. His candidacy was unsuccessful.
Media and Rupert Murdoch
In 1993 Potter was given a half hour in prime time by
Channel 4Channel 4 is a UK public-service television broadcaster which began working on November 2, 1982. Although commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station owned now and operated by the Channel Four Television...
in their
Opinions strand produced by
Open MediaOpen Media is a British television production company, best known for the discussion series After Dark, described by The Daily Mail as "the most intelligent, thought-provoking and interesting programme ever to have been on television"....
. Broadcast just before the third episode of
Lipstick on Your Collar, itself a rumination on the effects of the mass media, in this case through popular music, Potter's chosen topic was what he perceived to be a contamination of news media and its effect on declining standards in British television.
Craig BrownCraig Edward Moncrieff Brown is a British artist, critic, satirist, and writer from England, probably best known for his work in Private Eye.-Biography:...
described the programme in
The Sunday TimesThe Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
(owned by
Rupert MurdochKeith Rupert Murdoch, AC , usually known as Rupert Murdoch, is an Australian-born American global media mogul. He owns media outlets and is a major shareholder, chairman and managing director of News Corporation ....
):
-
- "Potter announced at the beginning: I'm going to get down there in the gutter where so many journalists crawl... what I'm about to do is to make a provenly vindictive and extremely powerful enemy... the enemy in question is that drivel-merchant, global huckster and so-to-speak media psychopath, Rupert Murdoch... Hannibal the Cannibal....
-
- As a performance, it had a lot going for it. I have never seen a talking head on television so immediate or so unabated in its anger. In many ways, it felt like being collared by a madman on the Tube. Filmed disturbingly close to camera, seemingly ad-libbing the entire half-hour, now mumbling, now rasping, Potter somehow managed to cut through the vacuum that on television usually separates viewer from viewee. This made the performance extraordinary."
Last interview
On 14 February 1994, Potter learned that he had terminal
cancerCancer is a class of diseases in which a group of cells display uncontrolled growth , invasion , and sometimes metastasis...
of the
pancreasThe pancreas is a gland organ in the digestive and endocrine system of vertebrates. It is both an endocrine gland producing several important hormones, including insulin, glucagon, and somatostatin, as well as an exocrine gland, secreting pancreatic juice containing digestive enzymes that pass to...
and
liverThe liver is a vital organ present in vertebrates and some other animals; it has a wide range of functions, including detoxification, protein synthesis, and production of biochemicals necessary for digestion...
. It was thought that this was a side effect of the medication he was taking to control his psoriasis. With typical sardonic humour, he named his cancer "Rupert", after Rupert Murdoch, who represented so much of what he found despicable about British mass media. On 15 March 1994, three months before his death, Potter gave a strikingly memorable interview to
Channel 4Channel 4 is a UK public-service television broadcaster which began working on November 2, 1982. Although commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station owned now and operated by the Channel Four Television...
(he had broken most of his ties with the BBC as a result of his disenchantment with Directors-General
Michael ChecklandSir Michael Checkland was Director-General of the BBC from 1987 to 1992, having been appointed after the forced resignation of Alasdair Milne.- Early life :...
and especially John Birt, whom he had famously referred to as a "croak-voiced
DalekThe Daleks are a fictional race of extraterrestrial mutants from the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Daleks are organisms from the planet Skaro, integrated within a tank-like mechanical casing. The resulting creatures are a powerful race bent on universal conquest and...
"), in which he described his work and his determination to continue writing until the end. As he sipped on a
morphineMorphine is a highly potent opiate analgesic psychoactive drug, is the principal active ingredient in Papaver somniferum , is considered to be the prototypical opioid. Like other opioids, e.g...
cocktail, he told a visibly moved
Melvyn BraggMelvyn Bragg, Baron Bragg, FRSL, FRTS is an English author, broadcaster and media personality who, aside from his many literary endeavours, is perhaps most recognised for his work on The South Bank Show.-Biography:...
that he had two works he intended to finish (
Cold Lazarus and
Karaoke) before his impending death: "My only regret is if I die four pages too soon". The interview was shown on 5 April 1994.
Psoriatic arthropathy
In 1962 Potter began to suffer from an acute form of
psoriasisPsoriasis is a chronic, non-contagious autoimmune disease that affects the skin and joints. It commonly causes red, scaly patches to appear on the skin. The scaly patches caused by psoriasis, called psoriatic plaques, are areas of inflammation and excessive skin production. Skin rapidly...
known as psoriatic arthropathy, a rare hereditary condition that affected his skin and caused
arthritisArthritis is a group of conditions involving damage to the joints of the body....
in his joints. For the rest of his life, Potter was frequently in hospitals, sometimes completely unable to move and in great pain. The disease eventually ruined his hands, reducing them to what he called "clubs". He had to learn to write by strapping a pen to his hand. Potter kept working between bouts of pain, nausea, and diarrhoea, clutching a pen in his clawed fist and writing in surprisingly neat longhand. ‘I can't use a typewriter’, he said, ‘because my trailing fingers would hit more than one key at once’. The script of
Son of Man (1969), mostly written in hospital, was delivered with drops of blood and cortisone grease splashed on it.
Widowerhood and death
Some months before Potter was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer his wife, Margaret Morgan Potter, was informed that she had
breast cancerBreast cancer is a cancer that starts in the breast, usually in the inner lining of the milk ducts or lobules. There are different types of breast cancer, with different stages , aggressiveness, and genetic makeup. With best treatment, 10-year disease-free survival varies from 98% to 10%...
. Despite his own deteriorating condition and punishing work schedule, Potter continued to care for her until she died on 29 May 1994. He died nine days later, in Ross-on-Wye,
HerefordshireHerefordshire is a historic and ceremonial county in the West Midlands region of England. It also forms a unitary district known as the County of Herefordshire. It borders the English ceremonial counties of Shropshire to the north, Worcestershire to the east, Gloucestershire to the southeast, and...
, England, aged 59.
Criticism
Potter was sometimes attacked by other television writers, most notably
Alan BennettAlan Bennett is an English author, actor, humorist and playwright.-Early years:Bennett was born in Armley in Leeds, West Yorkshire. The son of a co-op butcher, Bennett attended Leeds Modern School , learned Russian at the Joint Services School for Linguists during his National Service, and gained...
and
Matthew GrahamMatthew Graham is a British television writer, and the co-creator of the BBC/Kudos Film and Television science fiction series Life on Mars, which debuted in 2006 on BBC One and has received international critical acclaim....
, for a perceived lack of humility and self-criticism; Graham described him as having "come undone" after
The Singing Detective and beginning to believe "every line that dripped from his pen was a work of genius". Bennett referred in his 1998 diaries to a television programme "that took Potter at his own self-evaluation (always high), when there was a good deal of indifferent stuff which was skated over".
Private EyePrivate Eye is a fortnightly British satirical and current affairs magazine, currently edited by Ian Hislop. Since its first publication in 1961, Private Eye has been a prominent critic of public figures deemed incompetent, inefficient or corrupt, and has become a self-styled "thorn in the side" of...
once lampooned him as Dennis Plodder, due to the slow pace of some of his work, and also branding him as "the whinging playwright".
Legacy
Although Potter won few awards, he is held in high regard by many within the television and film industry, and he was an influence on such creators as
Steven BochcoSteven Ronald Bochco is an American television producer and writer. He has developed a number of popular television hits including Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law, and NYPD Blue.-Early life:...
,
Alan BallAlan E. Ball is an American writer, director, actor and producer for film, theatre and television. He is noted for writing the film American Beauty, and creating and producing the HBO drama series Six Feet Under and True Blood...
,
Andrew DaviesAndrew Davies may refer to:*Andrew Davies *Andrew Davies , Welsh Labour politician*Andrew R. T. Davies, Welsh Conservative politician*Andrew Davies , Welsh darts player...
,
Charlie KaufmanCharles Stuart "Charlie" Kaufman is an Academy Award-, BAFTA-, and Independent Spirit Award-winning American screenwriter, producer, and director...
,
Peter BowkerPeter Bowker is a British playwright and screenwriter. He is best known for the television serials Blackpool , a musical drama about a shady casino owner; Occupation , which follows three military servicemen adjusting to civilian life after a tour of duty in Iraq; and Desperate Romantics , a...
,
Margaret EdsonMargaret Edson is an American playwright. Edson graduated with a B.A. in Renaissance History from Smith College, and received a master's in English literature from Georgetown University...
and
Alain ResnaisAlain Resnais is a French film director whose early works are often grouped within the New Wave or nouvelle vague film movement...
. His work has been the subject of many critical essays, books, websites and documentaries.
Alex ProyasAlexander "Alex" Proyas is an Australian filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer, best known for directing The Crow, Dark City, I, Robot and Knowing.-Biography:...
's Sci-Fi Noir masterpiece,
Dark City, has a dedication to Potter in its credits. BBC Four marked the tenth anniversary of Potter's death in December 2004 with a major series of documentaries about his life and work, accompanied by showings of
Pennies from Heaven and
The Singing Detective, as well as several of his single plays — many of which had not been shown since their maiden broadcast. His influence has also extended into popular music: Welsh band
Manic Street PreachersManic Street Preachers are an alternative rock band from Blackwood, Wales, formed in 1986. They are James Dean Bradfield , Nicky Wire and Sean Moore...
used quotes from Potter on the inner sleeves to their single "Kevin Carter" and
greatest hitsForever Delayed is a greatest hits album by the Manic Street Preachers, released in October 2002.The album included three singles which had never appeared on earlier albums , the latter being one of the band's two UK #1 hits, along with "If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next." Several...
collection, while Scottish "
art rockArt rock is a term describing a subgenre of rock music that tends to have "experimental or avant-garde influences" and emphasizes "novel sonic texture." Art rock is an "intrinsically album-based" form, which takes "advantage of the format's capacity for longer, more complex compositions and...
" band
Franz FerdinandFranz Ferdinand are a Scottish rock band that formed in Glasgow, Scotland, in 2002. The band is composed of Alex Kapranos , Bob Hardy , Nick McCarthy and Paul Thomson .The band first experienced chart success when their second single "Take Me Out" reached #3 in the...
modelled the
promotional videoA music video is a short film or video that accompanies a complete piece of music/song. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings. Although the origins of music videos go back much further, they came into their own in the...
for their song "
The Dark of the Matinée"The Dark of the Matinée", also known simply as "Matinée" is a song by Scottish rock band Franz Ferdinand. It was released as the fourth track on the self-titled album Franz Ferdinand on February 9, 2004...
" after
Blue Remembered Hills and
The Singing Detective.
Guy GarveyGuy Edward John Patrick Garvey , is the singer/guitarist to Manchester based, Mercury Music Prize winning band Elbow, as well as a presenter for BBC 6 Music and A&R manager of Skinny Dog Records. He previously presented a show on Sunday evenings on XFM...
, lead singer with
ElbowElbow are an English alternative rock band. Members of the band first played together in 1990 at The Corner Pin pub in Ramsbottom, Bury, a borough of Greater Manchester. The band currently retain their original line-up of lead vocalist and lyricist Guy Garvey, guitarist Mark Potter, keyboardist...
, has said he named his band after the exchange in
The Singing Detective where the central character claims that word to be the most beautiful in the English language.
Sources
Footnotes
External links