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Schmoedipus: a Screenplay
When a stranger, Glen, appears at the door of middle-aged Elizabeth Carter, he claims to be the illegitimate son she gave away at birth, and she accepts his story
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Published June 20, 1974
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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 of 1 review
November 13, 2019
I never understood this play. See if you can work out what it was all about, what the meaning was that escaped me. Dennis Potter was a tremendously successful writer, his tv productions were enormously popular and he wasn't obscure. He wasn't an intellectual like say, Beckett or Pinter, so I should be able to understand this play.
It starts with a middle-aged middle-class couple having breakfast. They are niggling each other a bit, she is bored and he doesn't really care. He leaves and she has nothing much to do all day. He works in an office and his hobby is model trains, of which he has a big set up in his house.
A young man comes to the door, he's weird, but that is the writing because so is she. He invites himself in and tells her he is the child she gave up for adoption before she was married that her husband knows nothing about. The day is spent with them being even weirder (he sings her Al Jolson's Mammy, he wants babying for all the years he's missed, she does but over sherry, and there is a sexual buzz going on.
She falls asleep from too much sherry and the young man destroys the train set. He leaves. A neighbour comes and hears the story. But the young man was not her son, she smothered her baby at two days old she says.
The husband returns. She tells him of the young man and how he will return. The train set is not destroyed. The husband asks her fondly if this was another one of her games? They seem complicit in something but what?
I just didn't get it at all. I don't even know wtf was going on really. One star, but another one because it did keep my attention in the hope I might actually understand it and what meaning it was supposed to convey.
It starts with a middle-aged middle-class couple having breakfast. They are niggling each other a bit, she is bored and he doesn't really care. He leaves and she has nothing much to do all day. He works in an office and his hobby is model trains, of which he has a big set up in his house.
A young man comes to the door, he's weird, but that is the writing because so is she. He invites himself in and tells her he is the child she gave up for adoption before she was married that her husband knows nothing about. The day is spent with them being even weirder (he sings her Al Jolson's Mammy, he wants babying for all the years he's missed, she does but over sherry, and there is a sexual buzz going on.
She falls asleep from too much sherry and the young man destroys the train set. He leaves. A neighbour comes and hears the story. But the young man was not her son, she smothered her baby at two days old she says.
The husband returns. She tells him of the young man and how he will return. The train set is not destroyed. The husband asks her fondly if this was another one of her games? They seem complicit in something but what?
I just didn't get it at all. I don't even know wtf was going on really. One star, but another one because it did keep my attention in the hope I might actually understand it and what meaning it was supposed to convey.
Displaying 1 of 1 review