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Dennis Potter (1935-1994) | |
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British dramatist, novelist, television and screenwriter, and non-fiction writer, whose fusion of fantasy and reality broke the rules and the limits of television dramas. Potter's plays showed an original and inventive use of the medium, and he gained cult status in his native Britain and the world. Among his best-known works are PENNIES FROM HEAVEN (1978), about a sheet-music salesman, and THE SINGING DETECTIVE (1986), in which Philip Marlow, a bedridden, suffering writer of detective stories, is losing his mind when his real-life memories mix with pop culture fantasies. "The stories we read in childhood have a potency that cannot be destroyed, not even by the nostalgia which is normally the most powerful disinfectant known to man." (Potter in New Statesman, 10 November 1972) Dennis Potter was born in the Forest of Dean, Gloucesterhire, a locale which recurs in his work. In THE GLITTERING COFFIN (1960) Potter wrote: "The people of this district are conscious of the unique identity of their birthplace, and speak a dialect so forceful and individual that, at times, it might almost be another language." Three of Potter's four great-grandfathers were Forest miners. His father Walter Potter was continued the family tradition. Potter's mother had been born and raised in London, but her mother was a Forester. Potter was educated at Bell's Grammar School. After a language course during his national service, Potter became a Russian-language clerk in the War Office. In 1959 he received his B.A. from New College, Oxford, where he studied philosophy, politics and economics. On the same year he married Margaret Morgan, a journalist; they had two daughters and a son. In Oxford Potter became involved in left-wing politics, and subsequently worked as journalist and critic. The Glittering Coffin, his first book, was an analysis of the Labour Party and the political climate of the time. In his mid-twenties Potter developed psoriatic skin irritation. He suffered the attacks of psoriatic arthropathy which left him drug-dependent for much of the rest of his life. Potter used later his hospital experiences in The Singing Detective, a highly successful six part television drama with the unforgettable "Bone Song". Potter joined the BBC as a graduate trainee and made a documentary, BETWEEN TWO RIVERS, about his home region. In 1961 joined the London Daily Herald as a feature and television critic. He wrote sketches for television series That Was the Week That Was. In 1964 Potter was an editorial writer for the London Sun, but he resigned in the same year to become a free-lance writer. Potter's television dramas aroused in the 1960s and 1970s much controversy. VOTE, VOTE, VOTE FOR NIGEL BARTON (1965) was based on his experiences as a unsuccessful Labour candidate from East Hertfordshire in the 1964 General Election. STAND UP, NIGEL BARTON (1965) dealt with the career of an aspiring working-class, Oxford-educated politician. THE CONFIDENCE COURSE (1965) brought threats of lawsuits. SON OF MAN (1969) portrayed Christ as an earthy hippie and was accused of blasphemy, and ONLY MAKE BELIEVE (1973) was considered indecent. BRIMSTONE AND TREACLE (1975) was banned by the BBC for eleven years. In the story a brain-damaged girl is raped by a devil-like creature. The point was that her recovery starts after this violent act. However, Potter's television plays were praised and received several awards. "He had once seen an old lady in a greetings-card shop moving her lips as she read the verse in one birthday card after another, and he had realized for the first time that neither the ability not the motives of those who had written the banal little rhymes were at issue: the old woman was seeking the most appropriate clutch of words to express the truth of her feelings for whoever she wanted to send the card to. She was the one who brought the truth, and the dignity, to what had been written without either." (from Blackeyes, 1987) BLACKEYES was Potter's last novel. It was later made into a four-part television series. In the story Maurice James Kingsley, a half-forgotten writer, has not produced a novel for twenty years, but when he finally does it, he gains huge success. "Talent, the old coinage. And if the talent fell short, then everything else about the calling, the commitment, was nothing but an empty and posturing impertinence." However, there is a sinister twist in the plot, a story inside a story about a writer, writing a story about a writer... In Maurice's book, the young model known as Blackeyes, dies with her lungs full of water. Blackeyes is a caricature of Jessica Kingsley, the writer's niece, and is based on Maurice's correspondence with her. Jessica wants revenge, but the story ends enigmatically: "As her lungs filled, she had the satisfaction of knowing that Blackeyes was free. Well, sort of free, anyway, for it is me that is waiting outside her door, ready to claim her." Among Potter's widely acclaimed dramas is Pennies From Heaven, which was inspired by classic Hollywood musicals. The story told about a sheet-music salesman, Arthur Parker, during the Depression. Parker's unhappy life and the harsh reality of the period are contrasted with cheery and romantic songs of the day and 1930s-style RKO and M-G-M musical numbers. Bob Hoskins played the central role in the BBC-TV series, Steve Martin in the film version. Potter's script received an Academy Award nomination. The film included re-creations of paintings by Edward Hopper and other painters and photographers of the period. In The Singing Detective a writer, named Marlow, lies in a hospital paralyzed with psoriasis. He retreats to fantasy and goes through events of his own life. The scene in which the boy Marlow, a coal miner's son, sees his mother's adultery in the Forest Dean was condemned by moralizers. In Keith Gordon's film version from 2003, produced by Mel Gibson, Robert Downey Jr. played the bedridden main character, named Dan Dark. Although Potter was best known for his own television plays, he also adapted novels for television, among them Angus Wilson's Late Call (1975) and F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night (televised in 1985). In 1994 Potter was diagnosed as suffering inoperable cancer. After given three months to live, he started writing two linked TV serials, KARAOKE (1994) and COLD LAZARUS (1994), for networks, BBC and the commercial Channel Four. Potter died on June 7, 1994 - his wife Margaret had died of cancer only nine days before. Potter managed to complete his television plays, which were transmitted in 1996 by BBC and Channel Four. In a television interview of 1994 he had said: "My only regret is if I die four pages too soon." For further reading: Dennis Potter: A Biography by Humphrey Carpenter (1999); Dennis Potter by Glen Creeber (1999); The Passion of Dennis Potter: International Collected Essays, ed. by Vernon W. Gras, John R. Cook (1999) ; The Life and Work of Dennis Potter by W. Stephen Gilbert (1998); Dennis Potter: A Life on Screen by John R. Cook, et al (1995); Dennis Potter by Peter Sted (1994); Potter on Potter by Dennis Potter (1994) - See also: Lewis Carroll Selected works:
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