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The Singing Detective
Potter presents the delightful script of the much-acclaimed BBC/PBS series. It is the unfolding tale of Philip Marlow, a bedridden writer of detective stories, whose real-life memories mix with pop culture fantasies as he lies in a London hospital.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
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About the author
Dennis Potter
63 books35 followersDennis Christopher George Potter (17 May 1935 – 7 June 1994) was an English dramatist, best known for The Singing Detective (1986). 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. Such was his reputation that he convinced BBC 2 and Channel 4 to co-operate in screening his final two works, written in the months he was aware of his impending death.
Potter's career as a television playwright began with The Confidence Course, an exposé of the Dale Carnegie 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 wall) which would become hallmarks of Potter's subsequent work. Broadcast as part of the BBC's The Wednesday Play 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 and his muse Alice Liddell. 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 Oxford University 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 experience. Both plays received praise from critics' circles but aroused considerable tension at the BBC for their potentially incendiary critique of party politics.
Potter's Son of Man (The Wednesday Play, 1969), starring the Irish actor Colin Blakely, gave an alternative view of the last days of Jesus, and led to Potter being accused of blasphemy. The same year, Potter contributed Moonlight on the Highway to ITV's Saturday Night Theatre strand. The play centred 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 Bowlly. 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.
Potter continued to make news as well as winning critical acclaim for drama serials with Pennies from Heaven (1978), which featured Bob Hoskins as a sheet music salesman and was Hoskins's first performance to receive wide attention. It demonstrated the dramatic possibilities old recordings of popular songs. Blue Remembered Hills 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 Four viewers as the golden era of British television. The adult actors playing the roles of children were Helen Mirren, Janine Duvitski, Michael Elphick, Colin Jeavons, Colin Welland, John Bird, and Robin Ellis. It was directed by Brian Gibson. The moralistic theme was "the child is father of the man". Potter had used the dramatic device of adult actors playing children before, for example in Stand Up, Nigel Barton.
The Singing Detective (1986), featuring Michael Gambon, used the dramatist's own battle with the skin disease psoriasis, for him an often debilitating condition, as a means to merge the lead character's imagination with his perception of reality.
His final two serials were Karaoke and Cold Lazarus (two related stories, both starring Albert Finney as the same principal character, one set in the present and the other in the far future).
Potter's work is distinctive for its use of non-naturalistic devices. The 'lip-sync' technique he developed for his "serials with songs" (Pennies
Potter's career as a television playwright began with The Confidence Course, an exposé of the Dale Carnegie 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 wall) which would become hallmarks of Potter's subsequent work. Broadcast as part of the BBC's The Wednesday Play 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 and his muse Alice Liddell. 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 Oxford University 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 experience. Both plays received praise from critics' circles but aroused considerable tension at the BBC for their potentially incendiary critique of party politics.
Potter's Son of Man (The Wednesday Play, 1969), starring the Irish actor Colin Blakely, gave an alternative view of the last days of Jesus, and led to Potter being accused of blasphemy. The same year, Potter contributed Moonlight on the Highway to ITV's Saturday Night Theatre strand. The play centred 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 Bowlly. 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.
Potter continued to make news as well as winning critical acclaim for drama serials with Pennies from Heaven (1978), which featured Bob Hoskins as a sheet music salesman and was Hoskins's first performance to receive wide attention. It demonstrated the dramatic possibilities old recordings of popular songs. Blue Remembered Hills 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 Four viewers as the golden era of British television. The adult actors playing the roles of children were Helen Mirren, Janine Duvitski, Michael Elphick, Colin Jeavons, Colin Welland, John Bird, and Robin Ellis. It was directed by Brian Gibson. The moralistic theme was "the child is father of the man". Potter had used the dramatic device of adult actors playing children before, for example in Stand Up, Nigel Barton.
The Singing Detective (1986), featuring Michael Gambon, used the dramatist's own battle with the skin disease psoriasis, for him an often debilitating condition, as a means to merge the lead character's imagination with his perception of reality.
His final two serials were Karaoke and Cold Lazarus (two related stories, both starring Albert Finney as the same principal character, one set in the present and the other in the far future).
Potter's work is distinctive for its use of non-naturalistic devices. The 'lip-sync' technique he developed for his "serials with songs" (Pennies
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
February 3, 2023
I haven't read many plays outside of Shakespeare and Tennessee Williams and the occasional Ionesco in college French classes, and now I'm wondering why. Reading The Singing Detective was a remarkable visualization-experiment. It's strange that, even though there are fewer words here to make a picture with in my mind, everything appeared much more vividly to my mind's eye than I typical novel scene does to me, even if I've never seen the television play. The layers of alternative realities that weave and wind throughout the play made this quite an experience and I'm curious now to see the play performed.
February 22, 2008
I remember when this was first shown on television – I remember the effect it had on me. That television could be like that! Here was something that proved television could be something more than mindless drivel. Of course, I was wrong – and The Singing Detective was just the exception that proves the rule.
This is a detective story with lots of clues and red herrings, but no solutions. A fantastic idea and brilliantly handled.
A man suffering from a horribly debilitating skin disorder refuses to take any drugs to help him cope with the pain and hallucinates his way through remembering a novel he wrote set in the 1940s about a singing detective and instances from his childhood, also in the 1940s, in which his lonely life, his parent’s marriage falling apart and his horrible secret from school are merged together with the nightmare he is going through with his marriage falling apart as his struggles to come to terms with his illness.
There are so many levels to this that getting the chance to read it helps enormously. Potter never minded putting in more in his dramas than his audiences were likely to grasp in one sitting. But this is his masterpiece. Mel Gibson did a film version of this – suitably dumbed-down and set in America for some reason – as if he didn’t have enough to answer for making The Passion of the Christ. One can only hope there is a hell – after seeing what Gibson did to The Singing Detective it is clear no self respecting God would let that go unpunished.
Not as bleak as Pennies From Heaven – this really is something special. But then, I’m a bit of a Potter nut. I even got my daughters to watch The Singing Detective – as one does…
I'm not sure it gets much better than this.
This is a detective story with lots of clues and red herrings, but no solutions. A fantastic idea and brilliantly handled.
A man suffering from a horribly debilitating skin disorder refuses to take any drugs to help him cope with the pain and hallucinates his way through remembering a novel he wrote set in the 1940s about a singing detective and instances from his childhood, also in the 1940s, in which his lonely life, his parent’s marriage falling apart and his horrible secret from school are merged together with the nightmare he is going through with his marriage falling apart as his struggles to come to terms with his illness.
There are so many levels to this that getting the chance to read it helps enormously. Potter never minded putting in more in his dramas than his audiences were likely to grasp in one sitting. But this is his masterpiece. Mel Gibson did a film version of this – suitably dumbed-down and set in America for some reason – as if he didn’t have enough to answer for making The Passion of the Christ. One can only hope there is a hell – after seeing what Gibson did to The Singing Detective it is clear no self respecting God would let that go unpunished.
Not as bleak as Pennies From Heaven – this really is something special. But then, I’m a bit of a Potter nut. I even got my daughters to watch The Singing Detective – as one does…
I'm not sure it gets much better than this.
January 4, 2014
This is a beautiful book in its own right. Most screenplays are blueprints for movies. The Singing Detective is the exception. The printed version of the script is a work of art. Reading the script is a different experience from the viewing the film and just as compelling.
March 24, 2011
I made my discovery of Dennis Potter by accident when thirteen (the "cusp" of fourteen. Now I'm all vaginal coming of age story). Thirteen was my weird age of Sweet Valley Twins (not even the "mature" high school version), gorging on the classics, and obsession with Homicide:Life on the Street (when googling myself I'll still find my old teen hyper excited posts about 'Homicide'. It was true love, and makes me shudder what I'd have written about Potter back then, if I'd made a website). I'm not going to say it changed my life (as late as last year I was addicted to Paris Hilton's BFF reality show. Soaps take three episodes to get into. Scientific fact so I'm not responsible. [Ask me about my boy band/chicken pox theory.] That was definitely a soap).
What it did was open my eyes.
You know how an important experience that rocks your world settles on your skin more like a ghost that comes and goes as it will? Not the angel on your shoulder you ignore, nor a diet that you'll drop two days later (diet starts Monday!) but an honest to god experience that makes you gasp and live in the fever that is someone else's life (hell). I didn't turn over any new leaves in my tastes. It could be like an especially painful event that doesn't consciously touch down on the rest of it (I'm great at compartmentalizing). It's hard for anything to be life-affirming when so much of what is in between is meaningless dreck (yeah, I'm including the Paris Hilton in this part of my life). I'm not ever going to forget Dennis Potter. Every once in a while I'll come back to him.
My Potter accident was either Track 29, starring Gary Oldman, or Brimestone and Treacle, with Sting. Gary Oldman was my favorite actor before Andre Braugher (Frank on 'Homicide') was my favorite actor. He got replaced by John Turturro and no mythological creature has yet to sprout back up in his place. Sidetracked again. (I had internet fansites to express my devotion. I wasn't CASUALLY devoted, if that's what you're thinking. "Like you just dropped Paris? Hm?") Anyway, both films are funny and sick as can be and I LOVED them. (Both also have rapist characters named Martin. The rapes are catalysts for awakenings of their victims. I've always wondered about any Martins Potter might've known...)
I'll trace back over how I discovered something important to me, then reassure myself of other avenues I might've taken. The good that almost didn't happen. "I could've found Potter that way if that hadn't happened..." Like someone with a near death experience! Yeah!) The library had copies of The Singing Detective and Pennies from Heaven. One of those great days of chance. I won the lottery in my public library video section.
Dennis Potter had skin problems, not exactly the same as the psoriatic arthritis in The Singing Detective (or maybe it is. My memory isn't the best). At the end of his days, Potter would tape the pen in his hand to write with because they had become no more than claws (needless to say, the man was dedicated to his work. He had nothing else. His wife had already tragically died of cancer). I've my own chronic respiratory problems to deal with (which does make my skin break out and I freak out. I always think of 'Singing' and freak out more and then singrasp classic songs), and it isn't hard to be taken back into the memories of sickness and hospitals. Reading or watching The Singing Detective can be difficult because those feelings are intense. I'll keep looking at my hands to make sure that I'm still me and not Marlowe. Really, no kidding, it is seeing the world through someone else's eyes (hands), and feeling the illness that comes behind it... It did open my eyes. To the importance of memories, fictions, the day to day... Almost like there really could be an actual "big picture". "How the hell did this happen?" and futilely wishing...
Putting things into perspective doesn't last. Living through something does. Dennis Potter rules my world because he does the latter. "Someone else has it worse" doesn't work. You can't remember pain exactly when the boo boo heals, so even your own pain doesn't always put things into perspective. "At least I have my health." There are such things as heartbreak, and loss, and what you can't get back. Those are the feelings of 'Singing'. That's how you ever know how someone else feels.
I'd recommend watching the tv productions because they are damned great and you get to listen to the music. The music is important in the best singing along to the music that happens to say everything you couldn't say way. (I've tried to get as many as I can to read 'cause I like to read screenplays and plays to see how they did it.)
A few years ago I treated myself to The Collected Dennis Potter dvd set from amazon.co.uk. It cost a pretty pound converted to the dollar (okay, I'd have more money if I didn't need to break the piggy bank for emergencies such as this so often. But I did really need it!). It has more than paid for itself. The set includes: The Singing Detective, Pennies From Heaven, Casanova, Brimstone & Treacle, Vote Vote Vote For Nigel Barton/Stand Up Nigel Barton, Blue Remembered Hills and Mayor Of Casterbridge. These are the tv versions, not the '80s film Brimestone and Treacle (starring Sting as Martin. He was devil as Draco Malfoy pouty sex creep. Fun and very '80s), Pennies from Heaven with Steve Martin (I don't believe I need to say which version I prefer. Bob Hoskins duh), or the ugh remake of The Singing Detective starring Robert Downey Jr (like getting a postcard of emotions ("Wish you were there!") instead of really feeling them like in the Michael Gambon '80s version. The memories and fiction aren't seamless either, I didn't ever jump on that train). Lipstick On Your Collar is on dvd. I bought the pricey vhs tape collection in high school with my babysitting money. I'd upgrade but this one isn't my favorite (don't NEED it). I've not read or seen Karaoke and Cold Lazarus. On paper it sounds similar in some respects to The Singing Detective (looks like I might um need this at some point). I'm definitely not done with Dennis Potter.
What it did was open my eyes.
You know how an important experience that rocks your world settles on your skin more like a ghost that comes and goes as it will? Not the angel on your shoulder you ignore, nor a diet that you'll drop two days later (diet starts Monday!) but an honest to god experience that makes you gasp and live in the fever that is someone else's life (hell). I didn't turn over any new leaves in my tastes. It could be like an especially painful event that doesn't consciously touch down on the rest of it (I'm great at compartmentalizing). It's hard for anything to be life-affirming when so much of what is in between is meaningless dreck (yeah, I'm including the Paris Hilton in this part of my life). I'm not ever going to forget Dennis Potter. Every once in a while I'll come back to him.
My Potter accident was either Track 29, starring Gary Oldman, or Brimestone and Treacle, with Sting. Gary Oldman was my favorite actor before Andre Braugher (Frank on 'Homicide') was my favorite actor. He got replaced by John Turturro and no mythological creature has yet to sprout back up in his place. Sidetracked again. (I had internet fansites to express my devotion. I wasn't CASUALLY devoted, if that's what you're thinking. "Like you just dropped Paris? Hm?") Anyway, both films are funny and sick as can be and I LOVED them. (Both also have rapist characters named Martin. The rapes are catalysts for awakenings of their victims. I've always wondered about any Martins Potter might've known...)
I'll trace back over how I discovered something important to me, then reassure myself of other avenues I might've taken. The good that almost didn't happen. "I could've found Potter that way if that hadn't happened..." Like someone with a near death experience! Yeah!) The library had copies of The Singing Detective and Pennies from Heaven. One of those great days of chance. I won the lottery in my public library video section.
Dennis Potter had skin problems, not exactly the same as the psoriatic arthritis in The Singing Detective (or maybe it is. My memory isn't the best). At the end of his days, Potter would tape the pen in his hand to write with because they had become no more than claws (needless to say, the man was dedicated to his work. He had nothing else. His wife had already tragically died of cancer). I've my own chronic respiratory problems to deal with (which does make my skin break out and I freak out. I always think of 'Singing' and freak out more and then sing
Putting things into perspective doesn't last. Living through something does. Dennis Potter rules my world because he does the latter. "Someone else has it worse" doesn't work. You can't remember pain exactly when the boo boo heals, so even your own pain doesn't always put things into perspective. "At least I have my health." There are such things as heartbreak, and loss, and what you can't get back. Those are the feelings of 'Singing'. That's how you ever know how someone else feels.
I'd recommend watching the tv productions because they are damned great and you get to listen to the music. The music is important in the best singing along to the music that happens to say everything you couldn't say way. (I've tried to get as many as I can to read 'cause I like to read screenplays and plays to see how they did it.)
A few years ago I treated myself to The Collected Dennis Potter dvd set from amazon.co.uk. It cost a pretty pound converted to the dollar (okay, I'd have more money if I didn't need to break the piggy bank for emergencies such as this so often. But I did really need it!). It has more than paid for itself. The set includes: The Singing Detective, Pennies From Heaven, Casanova, Brimstone & Treacle, Vote Vote Vote For Nigel Barton/Stand Up Nigel Barton, Blue Remembered Hills and Mayor Of Casterbridge. These are the tv versions, not the '80s film Brimestone and Treacle (starring Sting as Martin. He was devil as Draco Malfoy pouty sex creep. Fun and very '80s), Pennies from Heaven with Steve Martin (I don't believe I need to say which version I prefer. Bob Hoskins duh), or the ugh remake of The Singing Detective starring Robert Downey Jr (like getting a postcard of emotions ("Wish you were there!") instead of really feeling them like in the Michael Gambon '80s version. The memories and fiction aren't seamless either, I didn't ever jump on that train). Lipstick On Your Collar is on dvd. I bought the pricey vhs tape collection in high school with my babysitting money. I'd upgrade but this one isn't my favorite (don't NEED it). I've not read or seen Karaoke and Cold Lazarus. On paper it sounds similar in some respects to The Singing Detective (looks like I might um need this at some point). I'm definitely not done with Dennis Potter.
May 13, 2014
The best "Tele-play" ever. Notwithstanding the late Mr. Potter's usual stock socialist characters, it all comes together here. His finest work, and his epitaph.
When first shown on BBC, it drew letters to the Times about shocking language, until a CofE Rev. rebuked the lot, pointing out that this was among the most moving redemption stories he'd ever seen. Count me with the right Rev. The Potter alter-ego falls, and is re-born, but the reader/viewer gets a marvelous play within a play within a detective story in the process. Who done it?
Unusually, the script is a must AFTER you've see the 6+ hour television experience. Thereafter, this scrip is a joy to re-read when you don't have 6 hours to re-watch the play. The score is well worth it too.
When first shown on BBC, it drew letters to the Times about shocking language, until a CofE Rev. rebuked the lot, pointing out that this was among the most moving redemption stories he'd ever seen. Count me with the right Rev. The Potter alter-ego falls, and is re-born, but the reader/viewer gets a marvelous play within a play within a detective story in the process. Who done it?
Unusually, the script is a must AFTER you've see the 6+ hour television experience. Thereafter, this scrip is a joy to re-read when you don't have 6 hours to re-watch the play. The score is well worth it too.
January 31, 2009
Possibly the best play ever done for television. Not an easy journey, as with Hide And Seek, and not for the faint of heart and mind, but a difficult life laid bare. More a psychology text written by an English major.
December 25, 2018
Dennis Potter is a writer's writer--and for television, no less. The Singing Detective isn't a quick and breezy ride--it's meandering and inconsistent and painful yet often smirkingly funny.
It's got many different scenes and timeframes and one very unreliable narrator that results in something that's very meta in the end, and you can see where it informed the British Invasion of Comic writers.
It's got many different scenes and timeframes and one very unreliable narrator that results in something that's very meta in the end, and you can see where it informed the British Invasion of Comic writers.
October 17, 2007
I liked it but I'm not sure if I really understood it. :) It reminded me of "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" in parts, but maybe that's only because I haven't read enough plays.
November 11, 2010
Sain tämän lainaksi ystävältä junamatkaa varten tyylillä "sä saattaisit tykätä tästä". Pidinkin. Nerokkaasti rakennettu monitasoinen kertomus.
December 13, 2010
Strange. It took me half the book to figure out what was happening, but I kept on reading. Then when I figured it out I couldn't put it down.
February 4, 2024
Tämä ei ole kirja- vaan sarja-arvio, vaikka kirjaa selailinkin sarjaa katsellessani. Nyt voisin lukea kirjan uudelleen ja nähdä sarjan päässäni. Kääntäjä oli eri, tai ainakin käännökset poikkesivat hivenen toisistaan. Tämä on neutraali huomio, ei moite.
Sarja kolahti silloin, kun sen telkusta näin ja tekoäly kertoi minulle, että vuosi oli 1993. Alunperäinen tekovuosi oli 1986. Minulle ei tuolloin vielä ollut tuttu muu Dennis Potterin tuotanto, tunnetuimpana Pennejä taivaasta. Tuon jälkeen katsoin kaiken mitä Potterilta oli tarjolla ja lineaariteeveestä tuli: Pennien ja salapoliisin lisäksi Blackeyes, Huulipunaa kauluksessa ja kuoleman kanssa kilpaa kirjoitetut Kylmä Lasarus ja Karaoke - Dennis Potter kun kuoli syöpään juuri kun sai kirjoitustyön valmiiksi. Mainitsen vielä että laulavaa salapoliisia/kirjailija Philip Marlowia esittänyt Michael Gambon kuoli vastikään viime syksynä.
Löysin dvd-paketin Vaasankadun Pienestä Leffakaupasta ja testasin toimiiko yli kolmekymmenen vuoden takainen sarja edelleen. Kyllä toimi, kuvan suttuisella laadulla ei ollut merkitystä, toimi ainakin minulle, uudemmasta katsojakunnasta en osaa sanoa, olisiko tahti liian verkkainen. Sairaalassa makaavan kirjailijan päässä sekoittuvat jännitysromaani, lapsuusmuistot, vainoharhaiset kuvitelmat, musikaali ja ties mitä. Käsikirjoituksen pohjalta on tehty myös paljon lyhyempi amerikkalainen elokuva, mutta sitä en ole testannut.
Sarja kolahti silloin, kun sen telkusta näin ja tekoäly kertoi minulle, että vuosi oli 1993. Alunperäinen tekovuosi oli 1986. Minulle ei tuolloin vielä ollut tuttu muu Dennis Potterin tuotanto, tunnetuimpana Pennejä taivaasta. Tuon jälkeen katsoin kaiken mitä Potterilta oli tarjolla ja lineaariteeveestä tuli: Pennien ja salapoliisin lisäksi Blackeyes, Huulipunaa kauluksessa ja kuoleman kanssa kilpaa kirjoitetut Kylmä Lasarus ja Karaoke - Dennis Potter kun kuoli syöpään juuri kun sai kirjoitustyön valmiiksi. Mainitsen vielä että laulavaa salapoliisia/kirjailija Philip Marlowia esittänyt Michael Gambon kuoli vastikään viime syksynä.
Löysin dvd-paketin Vaasankadun Pienestä Leffakaupasta ja testasin toimiiko yli kolmekymmenen vuoden takainen sarja edelleen. Kyllä toimi, kuvan suttuisella laadulla ei ollut merkitystä, toimi ainakin minulle, uudemmasta katsojakunnasta en osaa sanoa, olisiko tahti liian verkkainen. Sairaalassa makaavan kirjailijan päässä sekoittuvat jännitysromaani, lapsuusmuistot, vainoharhaiset kuvitelmat, musikaali ja ties mitä. Käsikirjoituksen pohjalta on tehty myös paljon lyhyempi amerikkalainen elokuva, mutta sitä en ole testannut.
December 21, 2018
I've been rereading this script for almost thirty years and I'm still digging new things out of it.
It's the story of Philip Marlow, failed novelist and psoriasis sufferer who is in hospital with his latest bout with the disease and how he spends his time reconciling his past life with what he is at the moment. He's not a particularly likeable character but he is compelling and, as his inner life and history collide in the present day, he does know how to mix his genres effortlessly.
This is still regarded as a high water mark in Dennis Potter's career and rightly so. It's a brilliant story beautifully told.
It's the story of Philip Marlow, failed novelist and psoriasis sufferer who is in hospital with his latest bout with the disease and how he spends his time reconciling his past life with what he is at the moment. He's not a particularly likeable character but he is compelling and, as his inner life and history collide in the present day, he does know how to mix his genres effortlessly.
This is still regarded as a high water mark in Dennis Potter's career and rightly so. It's a brilliant story beautifully told.
November 2, 2020
Englantilaisen television suuri klassikko. Toimii myös dialogimuotoisena kirjana. Tarkempi arvio on luettavissa blogistani:
https://anttisorri.wordpress.com/2020...
https://anttisorri.wordpress.com/2020...
January 7, 2018
Watched the TV series as part of a university module and rewatched it quite recently.
Some of it is quite hard to follow but a true, slightly bizarre piece of reading material.
Some of it is quite hard to follow but a true, slightly bizarre piece of reading material.
Read
August 28, 2021I loved it! interesting experience to read a screen play. The weaving of stories was great!
May 5, 2024
It’s unbelievable how much genius detail from the shooting script ended up in the final show, but watch the show before you read the book, for you probably wouldn’t understand it otherwise.
Want to read
August 7, 2025Synopsis: a writer of mystery stories named Philip Marlow (!) is bedridden and begins to fantasize. A BBC / PBS series.
November 11, 2011
The British TV series changed forever what I thought was possible for TV. And it also taught me to be open to the possibility that books need not be, by default, better than their broadcast revisions. The book worked equally well as the show, but for different reasons. The psychological mystery and tension in TSD was for me when I read it amazing. And it worked differently in the thinking an imagination than it did when watching the TV series, and in a curious way they complemented one another. I'm thinking it's getting time to re-read it, now that I've put 23 years into my skin since then. And to re-watch the series.
September 13, 2012
Loved the BBC series with Michael Gambon, but it blew my mind a little. Reading Potter's complete text--which is definitely worth it for the familiar and unfamiliar, and stands alone as a piece of literature--makes me want to watch it all over again.
November 2, 2014
Masterpiece of one man's ravings while in pain...
childhood trauma, flights of fancy and imagination,
a writer's book, for anyone with a passion for how the surreal
can save us from horrible painful experiences.
Watch the film! My Mom I both laughed cathartically.
childhood trauma, flights of fancy and imagination,
a writer's book, for anyone with a passion for how the surreal
can save us from horrible painful experiences.
Watch the film! My Mom I both laughed cathartically.
August 30, 2025
That was great .. a whirl of images, of fantasy and reality all intertwined .. And just as a reading experience it stands on It’s own almost as though it was meant to be read.
I really love Dennis Potters style too and can’t wait to read more by him.
I really love Dennis Potters style too and can’t wait to read more by him.
June 9, 2015
Great drama series. Well worth watching if you can stand the psoriasis and misogyny.
January 17, 2016
Solid five stars. Six really. A master.
May 1, 2016
A remarkable achievement and a fine read
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews