Moonlight on the Highway
Encyclopedia
Moonlight on the Highway is a television play by Dennis Potter
, first broadcast on 12 April 1969 as part of ITV
's Saturday Night Theatre strand. The tale of a young Al Bowlly
obsessively attempting to blot out memories of sexual abuse via his fixation with the singer, the play was the first of Potter's works to use popular music as a dramatic device and strongly anticipated Potter's later 'serials with songs' Pennies from Heaven (1978), The Singing Detective
(1986) and Lipstick on Your Collar
(1993).
obsessive David Peters (Ian Holm
) is visited in his run-down bedsit
by Marie (Deborah Grant
), a researcher for Severn Television, who is collecting material for a documentary about the singer. David is the editor of the Al Bowlly Appreciation Society fanzine
and Marie hopes to secure him as the programme advisor. David is enthusiastic about the offer but has other things on his mind; he has an appointment with an NHS
psychiatrist the following day and his anxiety about the meeting, coupled with the novelty of entertaining his beautiful visitor, leads him to make an unwelcome pass at her. Marie fights off his advances and runs out the flat, leaving a defeated David to reflect on his problems.
In the waiting room the next day, David gets into an altercation with an elderly patient who has never heard of Al Bowlly. By the time he is finally called to see Dr Chilton (Anthony Bate
), David is agitated by the older man's ignorance — especially as today is the anniversary of Bowlly's death. The doctor's calm demeanour, however, soon puts David at ease and, with some difficulty, David explains that his mother died six weeks earlier after having nursed her throughout his adult life and harrowingly recounts how, at the age of ten, he was abducted by a stranger and sexually assaulted. Alongside these traumatic events, David hints as some "wicked" acts he has committed but Chilton stops him before he can elaborate on these and prescribes him some anti-depressants. He is warned not to drink alcohol or eat cheese while taking the tablets as they will "make [his] tongue wag."
After David leaves, Chilton informs the two student doctors who have been in attendance throughout the session that he believes David's claustrophobic relationship with his disabled mother and the earlier torment of sexual abuse have resulted in a sense of sexual disgust that he overcomes in his obsession with the innocent music of Al Bowlly. Chilton dismisses his junior colleagues' concerns that David may attempt suicide and suggests it is more likely that the desperate desire to discharge his secrets will perhaps lead him to confide in a friend.
Later that evening, David attends the annual meeting of the Al Bowlly Appreciation Society. Relieved that his ordeal with the psychiatrist is over, David forgets the warning not to mix his medication with alcohol and drinks heavily. After much merriment, the Society President calls David up on stage to talk about the success of the fanzine. As David holds forth in his speech about the beauty and innocence of Bowlly's music his mind wanders back to the sexual assault and, realising he is surrounded by friends whose attitudes to love and sex match his own, reveals that he has slept with 136 prostitutes. As he leaves the stage and the scandalised Society members return to their festivities, a jubilant David approaches a large blow-out of Bowlly mounted on the wall. He smiles: "Good old Al!"
Orchestra)
Songs quoted in dialogue but do not feature on the soundtrack include:
, Potter's producer and long-time friend since their days at Oxford, introduced the author to the popular songs of the 1930s and 40s through an article he wrote for the university magazine Isis
. Trodd acted as musical advisor on the play, a role he reprised for Potters later 'serials with songs' and the 1981 MGM film version of Pennies from Heaven
.
Moonlight on the Highway contains a number of semi-autobiographical elements. In 1945 the ten-year-old Potter and his sister June went to stay with their mother's relatives in Hammersmith
, West London
. Potter shared a bedroom with his bachelor uncle Ernie who sexually abused him. Potter first spoke publicly about the event in his introduction to Waiting for the Boat (published 1984) and later during his James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture at the 1993 Edinburgh Television Festival. The main character of Moonlight appears to live in Hammersmith and it is established during a montage sequence that the abuse David suffers occurred sometime around VJ Day, as Potter declared his had.
In Humphrey Carpenter
's 1998 Potter biography, Kenith Trodd claimed that at an unspecified point in the early 1960s Potter confessed to having regularly used prostitutes while working in London; the number of women he visited allegedly matched the number of David Peters' conquests in Moonlight. Gareth Davies
, who directed several of Potter's plays in the 1960s, also claims that Potter admitted to using prostitutes around this time but this time the number was much higher. These claims, however, have not been substantiated.
The play text was substantially cut for time, with twenty minutes of material featuring David's encounters with prostitutes being excised.
or flashforward
s. David's memories of sexual abuse and the death of his mother are represented with overlays and montage sequences, accompanied by Al Bowlly music on the soundtrack.
Potter uses Bowlly's songs to represent both David's desire to return to innocence and as a means for the character to express through Bowlly's lyrics the emotions that he can never express in his own words. When David unsuccessfully attempts to seduce Marie he plays her "Just Let Me Look at You" in the hope that Bowlly's words will make her understand his desire, while during his meeting with Dr Chilton he recites the lyrics of several Bowlly songs to explain the horror of his ordeal at the hands of his abuser. Potter's witty resetting of the meaning behind the Bowlly tracks used throughout the drama finds its apotheosis in the extra-diegetic, and ironic, use of "Lover, Come Back to Me" and "Easy Come, Easy Go": the former song accompanying David's memories of the assault, the latter as he attempts to recount his experiences to Chilton — suggesting the nature of his lost innocence.
(1986), Lipstick on Your Collar
(1993) and the play Cream in My Coffee
(1980).
The theme of sexual abuse is returned to in Only Make Believe (1973), Brimstone and Treacle
(1976), Where Adam Stood
(1976), Blue Remembered Hills
(1979), Blackeyes
(1989), Cold Lazarus
(1996) and the novel Hide and Seek (1974).
Characters also undergo psychiatric assessment in Follow the Yellow Brick Road
(1972), Hide and Seek and The Singing Detective.
on 12 April 1969 and has not received a repeat broadcast. It was released in 2007 alongside Shaggy Dog
(1968) and Lay Down Your Arms (1970) as the second volume of Network DVD
's Dennis Potter at London Weekend Television.
Dennis Potter
Dennis Christopher George Potter was an English dramatist, best known for The Singing Detective. 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 culture.-Biography:Dennis Potter was born...
, first broadcast on 12 April 1969 as part of ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
's Saturday Night Theatre strand. The tale of a young Al Bowlly
Al Bowlly
Albert Allick Bowlly was a Southern-African singer, songwriter, composer and band leader, who became a popular Jazz crooner during the 1930s in the United Kingdom and later, in the United States of America. He recorded more than 1,000 records between 1927 and 1941...
obsessively attempting to blot out memories of sexual abuse via his fixation with the singer, the play was the first of Potter's works to use popular music as a dramatic device and strongly anticipated Potter's later 'serials with songs' Pennies from Heaven (1978), The Singing Detective
The Singing Detective
The Singing Detective is a BBC television miniseries written by Dennis Potter, which stars Michael Gambon, and was directed by Jon Amiel. The six episodes were "Skin", "Heat", "Lovely Days", "Clues", "Pitter Patter" and "Who Done It"....
(1986) and Lipstick on Your Collar
Lipstick on Your Collar
Lipstick on Your Collar is a 1993 British television serial written by Dennis Potter, originally broadcast on Channel 4 expanded from Potter's earlier play Lay Down Your Arms...
(1993).
Synopsis
Al BowllyAl Bowlly
Albert Allick Bowlly was a Southern-African singer, songwriter, composer and band leader, who became a popular Jazz crooner during the 1930s in the United Kingdom and later, in the United States of America. He recorded more than 1,000 records between 1927 and 1941...
obsessive David Peters (Ian Holm
Ian Holm
Sir Ian Holm, CBE is an English actor known for his stage work and for many film roles. He received the 1967 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor for his performance as Lenny in The Homecoming and the 1998 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor for his performance in the title role of King Lear...
) is visited in his run-down bedsit
Bedsit
A bedsit, also known as a bed-sitting room, is a form of rented accommodation common in Great Britain and Ireland consisting of a single room and shared bathroom; they are part of a legal category of dwellings referred to as Houses in multiple occupation....
by Marie (Deborah Grant
Deborah Grant
Deborah Grant is an English actress.She trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama and appeared on stage at the Bristol Old Vic and in the West End of London. She has had a successful television acting career....
), a researcher for Severn Television, who is collecting material for a documentary about the singer. David is the editor of the Al Bowlly Appreciation Society fanzine
Fanzine
A fanzine is a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest...
and Marie hopes to secure him as the programme advisor. David is enthusiastic about the offer but has other things on his mind; he has an appointment with an NHS
National Health Service
The National Health Service is the shared name of three of the four publicly funded healthcare systems in the United Kingdom. They provide a comprehensive range of health services, the vast majority of which are free at the point of use to residents of the United Kingdom...
psychiatrist the following day and his anxiety about the meeting, coupled with the novelty of entertaining his beautiful visitor, leads him to make an unwelcome pass at her. Marie fights off his advances and runs out the flat, leaving a defeated David to reflect on his problems.
In the waiting room the next day, David gets into an altercation with an elderly patient who has never heard of Al Bowlly. By the time he is finally called to see Dr Chilton (Anthony Bate
Anthony Bate
Anthony Bate is an English actor.He is possibly best known for his role as Oliver Lacon in the BBC television adaptations of the John le Carré novels Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People....
), David is agitated by the older man's ignorance — especially as today is the anniversary of Bowlly's death. The doctor's calm demeanour, however, soon puts David at ease and, with some difficulty, David explains that his mother died six weeks earlier after having nursed her throughout his adult life and harrowingly recounts how, at the age of ten, he was abducted by a stranger and sexually assaulted. Alongside these traumatic events, David hints as some "wicked" acts he has committed but Chilton stops him before he can elaborate on these and prescribes him some anti-depressants. He is warned not to drink alcohol or eat cheese while taking the tablets as they will "make [his] tongue wag."
After David leaves, Chilton informs the two student doctors who have been in attendance throughout the session that he believes David's claustrophobic relationship with his disabled mother and the earlier torment of sexual abuse have resulted in a sense of sexual disgust that he overcomes in his obsession with the innocent music of Al Bowlly. Chilton dismisses his junior colleagues' concerns that David may attempt suicide and suggests it is more likely that the desperate desire to discharge his secrets will perhaps lead him to confide in a friend.
Later that evening, David attends the annual meeting of the Al Bowlly Appreciation Society. Relieved that his ordeal with the psychiatrist is over, David forgets the warning not to mix his medication with alcohol and drinks heavily. After much merriment, the Society President calls David up on stage to talk about the success of the fanzine. As David holds forth in his speech about the beauty and innocence of Bowlly's music his mind wanders back to the sexual assault and, realising he is surrounded by friends whose attitudes to love and sex match his own, reveals that he has slept with 136 prostitutes. As he leaves the stage and the scandalised Society members return to their festivities, a jubilant David approaches a large blow-out of Bowlly mounted on the wall. He smiles: "Good old Al!"
Principal cast
- Ian HolmIan HolmSir Ian Holm, CBE is an English actor known for his stage work and for many film roles. He received the 1967 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor for his performance as Lenny in The Homecoming and the 1998 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor for his performance in the title role of King Lear...
as David Peters - Anthony BateAnthony BateAnthony Bate is an English actor.He is possibly best known for his role as Oliver Lacon in the BBC television adaptations of the John le Carré novels Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People....
as Dr Chilton - Deborah Grant as Marie Holdsworth
- Robin Wentworth as Al Bowlly Appreciation Society President
- Derek Woodward as first medical student
- John Flanagan as second medical student
Music
(All songs recorded by Al Bowlly and the Lew StoneLew Stone
Lew Stone was a British dance band leader and arranger. He was well known in Britain during the 1930s.Stone learned music at an early age and became an accomplished pianist. In the 1920s, he worked with many important dance bands...
Orchestra)
- "Moonlight on the Highway" (21 March 1938)
- "Lover, Come Back to Me" (13 November 1933)
- "Just Let Me Look at You" (12 August 1938)
- "Easy Come, Easy Go" (15 June 1934)
- "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" (12 December 1933)
- "Oh! Mr Moon" (12 April 1933)
- "My Melancholy BabyMy Melancholy Baby"My Melancholy Baby" is a popular song published in 1912 and first sung publicly by William Frawley. The music was written by Ernie Burnett, the lyrics by George A...
" (Pathé NewsPathe NewsPathé Newsreels were produced from 1910 until the 1970s, when production of newsreels was in general stopped. Pathé News today is known as British Pathé and its archive of over 90,000 reels is fully digitised and online.-History:...
film extract)
Songs quoted in dialogue but do not feature on the soundtrack include:
- "You Couldn't Be Cuter"
- "Marie"
- "Isn't it Heavenly?"
- "I Love You Truly"
- "Love is the Sweetest Thing"
Production
Kenith TroddKenith Trodd
Kenith Trodd is a British television producer particularly noted for a long association with television playwright Dennis Potter.The son of a crane driver, Trodd was raised in the Christian fundamentalist Plymouth Brethren...
, Potter's producer and long-time friend since their days at Oxford, introduced the author to the popular songs of the 1930s and 40s through an article he wrote for the university magazine Isis
Isis magazine
The Isis Magazine was established at Oxford University in 1892 . Traditionally a rival to the student newspaper Cherwell, it was finally acquired by the latter's publishing house, OSPL, in the late 1990s...
. Trodd acted as musical advisor on the play, a role he reprised for Potters later 'serials with songs' and the 1981 MGM film version of Pennies from Heaven
Pennies from Heaven (1981 film)
Pennies from Heaven is a 1981 musical film. The film was based on a 1978 BBC television drama. In 1981, Dennis Potter adapted his own screenplay for a film of the same name for American audiences, with its setting changed to Depression era Chicago. Potter was nominated for the 1981 Academy Award...
.
Moonlight on the Highway contains a number of semi-autobiographical elements. In 1945 the ten-year-old Potter and his sister June went to stay with their mother's relatives in Hammersmith
Hammersmith
Hammersmith is an urban centre in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in west London, England, in the United Kingdom, approximately five miles west of Charing Cross on the north bank of the River Thames...
, West London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. Potter shared a bedroom with his bachelor uncle Ernie who sexually abused him. Potter first spoke publicly about the event in his introduction to Waiting for the Boat (published 1984) and later during his James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture at the 1993 Edinburgh Television Festival. The main character of Moonlight appears to live in Hammersmith and it is established during a montage sequence that the abuse David suffers occurred sometime around VJ Day, as Potter declared his had.
In Humphrey Carpenter
Humphrey Carpenter
Humphrey William Bouverie Carpenter was an English biographer, writer, and radio broadcaster.-Biography:...
's 1998 Potter biography, Kenith Trodd claimed that at an unspecified point in the early 1960s Potter confessed to having regularly used prostitutes while working in London; the number of women he visited allegedly matched the number of David Peters' conquests in Moonlight. Gareth Davies
Gareth Davies (director)
Gareth Davies is a British television director and actor.Davies began his career as an actor with stage roles at the Royal Court Theatre in London and a recurring role in the early BBC soap opera Compact. It is though as a television director where Davies made his greatest impact...
, who directed several of Potter's plays in the 1960s, also claims that Potter admitted to using prostitutes around this time but this time the number was much higher. These claims, however, have not been substantiated.
The play text was substantially cut for time, with twenty minutes of material featuring David's encounters with prostitutes being excised.
Style and themes
The play is structured as a non-linear narrative. The main action of the drama takes place at Chilton's practice, while other scenes (David's attempt to seduce Marie and the meeting of the Al Bowlly Appreciation Society) are incorporated as flashbacksFlashback (narrative)
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 before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
or flashforward
Flashforward
A flashforward is an interjected scene that takes the narrative forward in time from the current point of the story in literature, film, television and other media. Flashforwards are often used to represent events expected, projected, or imagined to occur in the future...
s. David's memories of sexual abuse and the death of his mother are represented with overlays and montage sequences, accompanied by Al Bowlly music on the soundtrack.
Potter uses Bowlly's songs to represent both David's desire to return to innocence and as a means for the character to express through Bowlly's lyrics the emotions that he can never express in his own words. When David unsuccessfully attempts to seduce Marie he plays her "Just Let Me Look at You" in the hope that Bowlly's words will make her understand his desire, while during his meeting with Dr Chilton he recites the lyrics of several Bowlly songs to explain the horror of his ordeal at the hands of his abuser. Potter's witty resetting of the meaning behind the Bowlly tracks used throughout the drama finds its apotheosis in the extra-diegetic, and ironic, use of "Lover, Come Back to Me" and "Easy Come, Easy Go": the former song accompanying David's memories of the assault, the latter as he attempts to recount his experiences to Chilton — suggesting the nature of his lost innocence.
Intertextuality
Potter would later use popular music as a means to heighten the dramatic tension in his work in the serials Pennies from Heaven (1978), The Singing DetectiveThe Singing Detective
The Singing Detective is a BBC television miniseries written by Dennis Potter, which stars Michael Gambon, and was directed by Jon Amiel. The six episodes were "Skin", "Heat", "Lovely Days", "Clues", "Pitter Patter" and "Who Done It"....
(1986), Lipstick on Your Collar
Lipstick on Your Collar
Lipstick on Your Collar is a 1993 British television serial written by Dennis Potter, originally broadcast on Channel 4 expanded from Potter's earlier play Lay Down Your Arms...
(1993) and the play Cream in My Coffee
Cream in My Coffee
Cream in My Coffee is a television drama by Dennis Potter, broadcast on ITV on 2 November 1980 as the last in a loosely-connected trilogy of plays exploring language and betrayal. A juxtaposition between youth and old age, the play combines a non-linear narrative with the use of popular music to...
(1980).
The theme of sexual abuse is returned to in Only Make Believe (1973), Brimstone and Treacle
Brimstone and Treacle
-Potter on Brimstone and Treacle:In 1978, Potter said:I had written Brimstone and Treacle in difficult personal circumstances. Years of acute psoriatic arthropathy—unpleasantly affecting skin and joints—had not only taken their toll in physical damage but had also, and perhaps inevitably, mediated...
(1976), Where Adam Stood
Where Adam Stood
Where Adam Stood is a television play by Dennis Potter, first broadcast on BBC2 in 1976. It is a free adaptation of Edmund Gosse's autobiographical book Father and Son .-Synopsis:...
(1976), Blue Remembered Hills
Blue Remembered Hills
Blue Remembered Hills is a television play by Dennis Potter, originally broadcast on January 30, 1979 as part of the BBC's Play for Today series....
(1979), Blackeyes
Blackeyes
Blackeyes is 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), Cold Lazarus
Cold Lazarus
Cold Lazarus is a four-part British television drama written by Dennis Potter with the knowledge that he was dying of cancer of the pancreas....
(1996) and the novel Hide and Seek (1974).
Characters also undergo psychiatric assessment in Follow the Yellow Brick Road
Follow the Yellow Brick Road
Follow the Yellow Brick Road is a television play by Dennis Potter, first broadcast in 1972 as part of BBC Two's The Sextet series of eight plays featuring the same six actors. The play is notable for its central theme of popular culture becoming the inheritor of religious scripture, which...
(1972), Hide and Seek and The Singing Detective.
Broadcast and commercial release
The play was broadcast on ITVITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
on 12 April 1969 and has not received a repeat broadcast. It was released in 2007 alongside Shaggy Dog
Shaggy Dog (play)
Shaggy Dog, broadcast by ITV on 10 November 1968, is a black and white television play by Dennis Potter written for the London Weekend Television anthology series The Company of Five, specifically a group of five actors.-Synopsis:...
(1968) and Lay Down Your Arms (1970) as the second volume of Network DVD
Network DVD
Network DVD is a DVD publishing company that specialises in classic British television. In particular, it has the rights to a number of well-known ITV programmes...
's Dennis Potter at London Weekend Television.
Sources
- Humphrey Carpenter, Dennis Potter: A Biography; 1998
- Graham Fuller (Ed.), Potter on Potter; 1993
- W.S. Gilbert, Fight and Kick and Bite: The Life and Work of Dennis Potter; 1995
- Nigel Williams (Ed.), ArenaArena (TV series)Arena is a British television documentary series, made and broadcast by the BBC. It has run since 1 October 1975, and over five hundred episodes have been made. Arena covers all manner of subjects, from profiles of notable people such as Bob Dylan to the Ford Cortina car...
: Painting the Clouds; 2005 - Nigel Williams (Ed.), Arena: It's in the Songs; 2005