The Singing Detective (2003)
Tormented and bedridden by a debilitating disease, a mystery writer relives his detective stories through his imagination and hallucinations. ...
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Dennis Christopher George Potter (17 May 1935 – 7 June 1994) was an English television dramatist, screenwriter and journalist. He is best known for his BBC TV serials Pennies from Heaven (1978), The Singing Detective (1986), and the television plays Blue Remembered Hills (1979) and Brimstone and Treacle (1976). His television dramas mixed fantasy and reality, the personal and the social, and often used themes and images from popular culture. Potter is widely regarded as one of the most influential and innovative dramatists to have worked in British television.
Born in Gloucestershire and graduating from Oxford University, Potter initially worked in journalism. After standing for parliament as a Labour candidate at the 1964 general election, his health was affected by the onset of psoriatic arthropathy which necessitated Potter changing careers and led to him becoming a television dramatist. His new career began with contributions to the BBC's Wednesday Play anthology series in 1965, and he continued to work in the medium for the rest of his life. He also wrote screenplay adaptations for the Hollywood studios. He died of pancreatic cancer in 1994.
Tormented and bedridden by a debilitating disease, a mystery writer relives his detective stories through his imagination and hallucinations. ...
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American producer James Boyce and his airhead wife Amber rent an English country mansion where the British horror flick "Smoke Rings" was filmed twenty years previous. Amber's mother was model-actress Mandy Mason, who died mysteriously after her appearance ...
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A version of Dennis Potter's play for television, remade shortly before his death as the original 1960s version had been wiped. ...
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A biography of the eighteenth century Viennese physician, Franz Anton Mesmer, who used unorthodox healing practices based on his theory of "animal magnetism. ...
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During a train ride, an anxiety attack leads middle-aged illustrator John into an identity crisis. As his marital problems merge and blur into his fantasy life with prostitutes and call girls, a long-dormant secret friend of his childhood surfaces in his d ...
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Years after a desperate teenage Linda gives up her baby for adoption, she finds herself face-to-face with Martin, a young man claiming to be her long-lost son. Linda embraces Martin and in him finds a welcome reprieve from her unhappy marriage to the negle ...
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A British businessman whose family company has been taken over by a multinational corporation clashes with his new American manager while they both vacation with their families at an Italian villa at their employer's expense. The manager's son fantasizes a ...
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80-year-old Alice Hargreaves is about to visit Columbia University to attend a reception in honour of author Lewis Carroll. As a child, Alice's close friendship with the writer was the creative catalyst for Carroll's most beloved work. However, as Alice re ...
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Police Inspector Renko tries to solve the case of three bodies found in Moscow's Gorky Park but finds his attempts to solve the crime impeded by his superiors. Working on his own, Renko seeks out more information and stumbles across a conspiracy involving ...
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A mysterious stranger inserts himself into a troubled family's life, blurring the lines between good and evil as he cares for their disabled daughter. ...
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During the Great Depression, a sheet music salesman seeks to escape his dreary life through popular music and a love affair with an innocent schoolteacher. ...
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Past and present intertwine: An elderly couple returns to the hotel where they became close when they were young and flashbacks to the earlier visit reveal the origins of both their pleasures and problems. Somewhere between the past and the present, Dennis ...
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Another of Dennis Potter's "visitation dramas": Adultery by John disturbs Janet, so she flirts with the simple, mistreated Billy during the middle of giving him a reading lesson. Unfortunately, it triggers aggressive behavior in Billy which he directs towa ...
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A reclusive author is visited by a young admirer - but both men are more than they claim to be. ...
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On an idyllic summer afternoon in the summer of 1943, a group of children play in the West Country hills, fields and forests. With no adults around, they indulge in spontaneous games and horseplay - sometimes echoing the distant war, at other times reveali ...
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Based on the 1907 autobiography "Father and Son" by Christian fundamentalist and naturalist Edmund Gosse, but Dennis Potter adapted only one section of the book, adding much material of his own invention. With a literal belief in the Old Testament, Philip ...
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A mysterious stranger inserts himself into a troubled family's life, blurring the lines between good and evil as he cares for their disabled daughter. ...
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Martin Ellis (Alan Dobie) is a blocked screenwriter who invites Helen, an actress (Kika Markham), to a hotel in central London to discuss an idea for a play he is writing with her in mind. As they discuss the play, Martin discovers that a businessman and a ...
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Glen, a complete stranger, appears at the door of Elizabeth Carter, a middle-aged woman, and claims to be the illegitimate son she gave away at birth. ...
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The religious beliefs of pet shop owner Joe (Freddie Jones) are shaken by the terminal illness of his daughter Lucy (Angharad Rees). For Potter, this play "makes more than a wry nod at possibilities which can comprehend pain, or disgust, or the implacable ...
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Playwright Christopher Hudson finds his medical problem hinders his writing. He employs secretary Sandra George and dictates his new play to her, but tensions soon develop between the two. As Hudson creates, scenes from his play are dramatized and interpol ...
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Jack Black is a disturbed commercial actor who believes himself to be trapped in a television play, followed around by an invisible camera. ...
Watch NowWestern journalists visit Moscow to interview Adrian Harris, a former controller in British intelligence who was also a double agent for the USSR. Harris believes in both Communism and Englishness, believing himself to have betrayed his class, but not his ...
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Facing retirement, elderly journalist Clarence Hubbard reflects on the pointlessness of a life wasted writing banal tabloid human interest, animal, and crime stories. Rather than go quietly to tend roses in a garden, Hubbard begins a series of violent acti ...
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This neat, intense drama, labelled "a fable for television", stars Tom Bell as the scruffy, childlike Michael Biddle, who is invited in from the cold of a suburban street by sexually frustrated, bored housewife Cynthia, played by Christine Hargreaves. He d ...
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Dennis Potter used his own background as a Russian language clerk in the War Office when writing this play for ITV's SATURDAY NIGHT THEATRE series. At the time of the 1956 Suez Crisis and the Russian invasion of Hungary, Private Bob Hawk reports to the Lon ...
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Dennis Potter's controversial reading of the life of Christ, with Jesus portrayed as a hearty, fiery, well-meaning carpenter who believes that people should try to love their enemies rather than fight all the time, but who is racked by self doubt as to whe ...
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Writing for ITV's SATURDAY NIGHT THEATRE series, Dennis Potter introduced the notion that popular music expresses the yearning of the human spirit for a better world. A troubled young man, David Peters (Ian Holm), claims, "Once dreams were possible, that's ...
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A young local girl is murdered by a mentally disturbed youth, but the villagers blame a stranger, an Italian traveling showman and his bear, rather than see the rot in their own camp. ...
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A no-nonsense businessman, Mr. Wilkie, is interviewed for a position with a top-of-the-line hotel chain corporation. During the interview, Wilkie attempts to complete a shaggy-dog story. His frustrations lead to a total breakdown. He suddenly snaps and pul ...
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George, an ineffectual and inoffensive clerk, and his prim wife Gladys reserve their greatest efforts for preserving their respectibility. Sam, a rough-necked American seaman, invades their dull suburban routine. The play examines the clash of cultures bet ...
Watch NowPoor Willy's mind has been warped by too many Westerns. He sees gunfighters on every corner, even though he's in 1960s Swansea. Some think Billy's simple. His Auntie just thinks he's creative. But he's on a dark path as his vivid imaginings grow wilder, an ...
Watch NowDrama set in a men's hospital ward, written by Dennis Potter. Characters include a cunning bronchitic Londoner, a strapped-up Pole and a dying man who just wants a cup of tea. ...
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Candidate Nigel Barton goes from idealism to cynicism as he becomes disillusioned and suspicious of hollow campaign promises. ...
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Semi-autobiographical TV play by Dennis Potter, from the BBC's 'Wednesday Play' series. It deals with the experiences of Nigel Barton, a young man from a poor mining community who wins a scholarship to Oxford University. The villagers accuse him of snobber ...
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In this look at Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898), aka Lewis Carroll, Dennis Potter mixed biographical drama with a psychological profile to explore the roots of Dodgson's creativity. Dodgson tells stories to ten-year-old Alice Liddell, leading to recre ...
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After a brief tutelage with innovative BBC documentary producer Denis Mitchell, Dennis Potter teamed with producer Anthony de Lotbiniere to film a documentary (later described by David Niven as "absolutely wonderful"). Returning to the Berry Hill roots of ...
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Marking Play for Today's 50th anniversary, Drama Out of a Crisis is a compelling exploration of the series, its origins, achievements, controversies and legacies. Featuring a rich and surprising range of archive extracts and original interviews with many ...
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Dennis Potter a television dramatist talks about his work, politics and his fears for both. ...
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Dennis Potter, Esther Dyson, William Gibson and other techno-thinkers appeared in this award-winning three-part documentary series which examined social changes brought about by new information technologies, along with other issues and dilemmas facing soci ...
Watch NowOn an idyllic summer afternoon in the summer of 1943, a group of children play in the West Country hills, fields and forests. With no adults around, they indulge in spontaneous games and horseplay - sometimes echoing the distant war, at other times reveali ...
Watch NowAfter a brief tutelage with innovative BBC documentary producer Denis Mitchell, Dennis Potter teamed with producer Anthony de Lotbiniere to film a documentary (later described by David Niven as "absolutely wonderful"). Returning to the Berry Hill roots of ...
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