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Dennis Potter

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Dennis Potter
Cover of The Life and Work of Dennis Potter
Cover ofThe Life and Work of Dennis Potter
Born17 May 1935
Berry Hill,Gloucestershire,England
Died7 June 1994(1994-06-07)(aged 59)
Ross-on-Wye,Hereford and Worcester,England
OccupationTelevision playwright, director
novelist, author
NationalityBritish
Period1960–1994
GenreDrama
Notable worksPennies from Heaven(1978)
Blue Remembered Hills(1979)
The Singing Detective(1986)
SpouseMargaret Morgan (m. 1959–1994)

Dennis Christopher George Potter(17 May 1935 – 7 June 1994) was an English televisiondramatist,screenwriter and journalist.

Beginning with contributions to BBC television'sThe Wednesday Playanthology series from 1965, he peaked withThe Singing Detective(1986), a BBC TV serial for which he is best remembered. This work and many of his other widely acclaimed television dramas mixed fantasy and reality, the personal and the social and often used themes and images from popular culture. A sufferer frompsoriatic arthropathyfor most of his adult life, Potter made regular public pronouncements on issues dear to him.

Early life

Dennis Potter was born inBerry Hill,Forest of Dean,Gloucestershire.His father, Walter Edward Potter (1906 – November 1975),[1]was acoal minerin this rural mining area between Gloucester and Wales; his mother was Margaret Constance, née Wale (1910–2001). Potter has a sister named June.[2]

In 1946, Potter passed theeleven-plusand attendedBell's Grammar SchoolatColeford.The ten-year-old Potter was sexually abused by his uncle, an experience he would later allude to many times in his writing.[3]Between 1953 and 1955, Potter did hisNational Serviceand learnt Russian at theJoint Services School for Linguists.[4]

On 10 January 1959 he married at the Christchurch parish church Margaret Amy Morgan (1933–1994), a local girl he met at a dance.[4]They lived a "surprisingly quiet private life" atRoss-on-Wye,Herefordshire,and had a son, Robert and two daughters, Jane andSarah,who was to achieve prominence in the 1980s as an internationalcricketer.[citation needed]

Early career

Potter's first non-fiction work,The Glittering Coffin,was published by theGollancz Pressin 1960. The book was a rumination on the changing face of England in the prosperity following the end of the war years. It was followed byThe Changing Forest: Life in the Forest of Dean Today(1962), which was based on the "Between Two Rivers" documentary. This book is a study of class and social mobility that demonstrates an early fascination with the effects of the mass media on British cultural life.

He soon returned to television.Daily HeraldjournalistDavid Nathanpersuaded Potter to collaborate with him on sketches forThat Was The Week That Was.Their first piece was used in the edition of 5 January 1963.[5]

Potter stood as theLabour Partycandidate forHertfordshire East,a safeConservative Partyseat, in the1964 general electionagainst the incumbentDerek Walker-Smith.By the end of the unsuccessful campaign, he claimed that he was so disillusioned with party politics he did not even vote for himself.

In 1962 Potter had begun to suffer from an acute form of psoriasis known aspsoriatic arthropathythat affected his skin and causedarthritisin his joints. It also made attempts to follow a conventional career path futile. Potter embarked on work as a television playwright.

Writing and public career

Main article:Dennis Potter bibliography

Television

Potter's career as a television playwright began withThe Confidence Course,an exposé of theDale CarnegieInstitute that drew threats of litigation. Although Potter effectively disowned the play, it uses non-naturalistic dramatic devices (in this case breaking thefourth wall) which would become hallmarks of Potter's subsequent work. Broadcast as part of the BBC'sThe Wednesday Playstrand early in 1965,The Confidence Courseproved successful and Potter was commissioned to make further contributions.Alice(1965), his next play, was a controversial drama chronicling the relationship betweenCharles Lutwidge Dodgson,better known as Lewis Carroll, and his museAlice Liddell.George Bakerplayed Dodgson.

Potter's most highly regarded works from this period are the semi-autobiographical playsStand Up, Nigel Barton!andVote, Vote, Vote for Nigel Barton,which featuredKeith Barron.The former recounts the experience of a miner's son going to Oxford University where he finds himself torn between two worlds, culminating in Barton's participation in a television documentary. This mirrored his creator's participation inDoes Class Matter(1958), a television documentary made while Potter was an Oxford undergraduate.[6]The second play featured the same character standing as a Labour candidate—his disillusionment with the compromises of electoral politics is based on Potter's own experience.[7]Both plays received praise from critics' circles but aroused considerable tension at the BBC for their potentially incendiary critique of party politics.[7]In hisJames MacTaggart Memorial Lecturein 1993, Potter recalled how he was asked by "several respected men at the corporation why I wanted to shit on the Queen" (Occupying Powers,1993).

After several poorly received projects, Potter contributedMoonlight on the HighwaytoITV'sSaturday Night Theatrestrand broadcast on 12 April 1969. The play centred around a young man (Ian Holm) who attempts to blot out memories of the sexual abuse he had suffered as child in his obsession with the music ofAl Bowlly.As well as being an intensely personal play for Potter, it was his first foray in the use of popular music to heighten the dramatic tension in his work. Four days later Potter'sSon of Man,in which the dramatist gives an alternative view of Christ's last days, went out as aWednesday Playon BBC1 with Irish actorColin BlakelyasJesus.It led to Potter being accused ofblasphemy,and the first of many clashes with morality campaignerMary Whitehouse.

Casanova,Potter's first television serial, was broadcast onBBC2in 1971. Inspired by William R. Trask's 1966 translation ofCasanova's memoirs (Histoire de ma vie), Potter recast the Venetian libertine as a man haunted by his dependency on women.[8]The serial was told using anon-linearnarrative structure and, as the critic Graham Fuller noted inPotter on Potter,"as chamber-piece and identity quest,Casanovastrongly anticipates [later works such as]The Singing Detective."It did, however, prove controversial for its frank depiction of nudity and was criticized for its sexual content. Controversy also dogged another play,Brimstone and Treacle(Play for Today,1976), the original version of which was unscreened by the BBC for over a decade owing to the depiction of the rape of a disabled woman by a man who is implied to be the devil incarnate. It was eventually broadcast onBBC2in 1987, although a 1982 film version had been made, withStingin the leading role (see below) and a stage version performed in Sheffield at theCrucible Theatre.

Potter continued to make news as well as winning critical acclaim for drama serials withPennies From Heaven(1978), which featuredBob Hoskinsas a sheet music salesman and was Hoskins's first performance to receive wide attention. It demonstrated the dramatic possibilities of actors miming to old recordings of popular songs.Blue Remembered Hillswas first shown on the BBC on 30 January 1979; it used the dramatic device of adult actors playing children, includingHelen Mirren,Janine Duvitski,Michael Elphick,Colin Jeavons,Colin Welland,John Bird,andRobin Ellis.It was directed byBrian Gibson.Potter had used this device before, for example inStand Up, Nigel Barton.Blue Remembered Hillsreturned to the British small screen in Christmas 2004 and in summer 2005, showcased as part of the winning decade (1970s) voted byBBC Fourviewers as the golden era of British television.

A lucrative deal withLWT,and semi-independence, followed an aborted project to adaptAnthony Powell'sA Dance to the Music of Timefor the BBC. A series of six single plays by Potter for ITV, with a further three written byJim Allen,was planned. Budget overspends meant only three of the Potter plays were produced: theBAFTA-winningBlade on the Feather,Rain on the RoofandCream in My Coffee,which won Grand Prize at thePrix Italia.

He also wrote the scripts for a widely-praised but seldom-seen miniseries ofF. Scott Fitzgerald'sTender Is the Night(1985) withMary Steenburgenas Nicole Diver.

The Singing Detective(1986), featuringMichael Gambon,used the dramatist's own battle with the skin diseasepsoriasis,for him an often debilitating condition, as a means to merge the lead character's imagination with his perception of reality.

Potter's TV serial,Blackeyes(1989, also anovel- see below), a drama about afashion model,was reviewed as self-indulgent by some critics, and accused of contributing to themisogynyPotter claimed he intended to expose.[9]The critical backlash against Potter followingBlackeyesled to him being nicknamed 'Dirty Den' (aftera soap opera character) by the British tabloid press,[10]and resulted in a long period of reclusion from television. In 1990 Mary Whitehouse claimed on BBC Radio that Potter had been influenced by witnessing his mother engaging in adulterous sex. Potter's mother won substantial damages from the BBC[11]andThe Listener.[12]Potter had at least at some times actually been an admirer of Mrs Whitehouse: the journalist Stanley Reynolds found in 1973 that he "loves the idea of Mrs Whitehouse. He sees her as standing up for all the people with ducks on their walls who have been laughed at and treated like rubbish by the sophisticated metropolitan minority."[13]In 1979 in an interview forThe South Bank Show,he rejected "the chorus of abuse" suffered by Whitehouse because she accepted the "central moral importance of - to use the grandest word - art".[14]

Potter's romantic comedyLipstick on Your Collar(1993) was a return to more conventional themes and the familiar format of six hour-long episodes, but did not become the desired popular success, although it helped launch the career ofEwan McGregor.[9]

Film

In 1978Herbert Rosswas shootingNijinskyatShepperton Studiosand invited Potter to write the screenplay for his next projectUnexpected Valleys.But after watchingPennies from Heavenon television one evening, Ross contacted Potter about the prospect of adapting that series for the cinema.[15]The film version ofPennies from Heavenwas launched atMGMas an 'anti-musical' withSteve MartinandBernadette Petersin the lead roles. According to Potter, the studio demanded continual rewrites of the script and made significant cuts to the film after initial test screenings. The film was released in 1981 to mixed critical reaction and was a box office disaster. Potter, however, was nominated for theBest Adapted ScreenplayOscarthat year alongsideHarold PinterforThe French Lieutenant's Woman.

Having already adaptedBrimstone and Treaclefor the stage after the television production was banned by the BBC, Potter set about writing a film version. Directed byRichard Loncraine,who also directed Potter'sBlade on the Featherat LWT, the film's soundtrack included works byThe Police,Sting,The Go-Go's,andSqueeze,while Sting played the role of Martin Taylor;Denholm Elliotreprised his role from the original television production playing Mr. Bates, whileJoan Plowrighttook thePatricia Lawrencerole as Mrs. Bates. Although a British film made by Potter's own production company (Pennies Productions), the casting of Sting piqued the interest of American investors. As a result, references to Mr Bates' membership of theNational Frontand a scene discussing racial segregation were omitted — as were many of the non-naturalistic flourishes that dominated the television production — although the film was much more graphic in its depiction of sexual abuse and rape. The film was not a success at the box office, though Sting's cover of "Spread a Little Happiness"reached number sixteen in theUK Singles Chart.[16]

Potter's screenplay forGorky Park(1983) earned him anEdgar Awardfrom theMystery Writers of America,although it emerged as a shadow ofMartin Cruz Smith'soriginal novel.He also wroteDreamchild(1985), a film which shared themes with his earlierAliceTV script. In her last film role,Coral Browneportrayed the elderly Alice Hargreaves who recalls in flashbacks her childhood when she was the inspiration forLewis Carroll'sAlice in Wonderland.In 1987, he adapted his television playSchmoedipus(1975) for the cinema. The ensuing film,Track 29,directed byNicolas Roeg,was the last project Potter would pursue in Hollywood. However, Potter did provide uncredited script work onJames and the Giant Peach(released 1995) — his chief contribution providing dialogue for the sardonic caterpillar. Potter makes a sly reference to this inKaraokewhen the character Daniel Feeld (Albert Finney) is invited to provide dialogue for an "arthritic goat" in a children's film.

Potter's reputation within the American film industry following the box office disappointments ofPennies from HeavenandGorky Parkultimately led to difficulty receiving backing for his projects. Potter is known to have written adaptations ofThe Phantom of the Opera,The Mystery of Edwin Drood,The White Hoteland his own 1976 television playDouble Dare:all reached the preproduction stage before work was suspended. More fortunate wasMesmer(1993), abiographical filmof the 19th century pseudo-scientistFranz Anton Mesmer.

In 1991 Potter directed a film,Secret Friends(from his novel,Ticket to Ride), starringAlan Bates.Secret Friendspremiered in New York at theMuseum of Modern Artas the gala closing of theMuseum of Television & Radio’s week-long Potter retrospective.

The last film Potter actively worked on wasMidnight Movie(1994), an adaptation of Rosalind Ashe's novelMoths.The film starredLouise GermaineandBrian Dennehy(who had appeared respectively inLipstick on Your CollarandGorky Park) and was directed by Renny Rye. Unable to secure financing from the Arts Council, Potter invested half a million pounds into the production; BBC Films provided the rest of the capital. The film was not given a cinema release owing to a lack of interest from distributors and remained unseen until after Potter's death. It was finally broadcast on BBC2 in December 1994 as part of aScreen Twoseason, two months after a remake of hislost1967 playMessage for Posteritywas transmitted.

A film version ofThe Singing Detective,based on Potter's own adapted screenplay, was released in 2003 byIcon Productions.Robert Downey, Jr.played the lead alongsideRobin Wright PennandMel Gibson.Gibson also acted as producer.

The media and Rupert Murdoch

In 1993 Potter was given a half-hour slot in prime time byChannel 4in theirOpinionsstrand produced byOpen Media.Broadcast just before the third episode ofLipstick on Your Collar- itself a rumination on the effects of the mass media, in that case through popular music - Potter's chosen topic was what he perceived to be a contamination of news media and its effect on declining standards in British television.Craig Browndescribed the programme in the (Murdochowned)Sunday Times:

"Potter announced at the beginning: 'I'm going to get down there in the gutter where so many journalists crawl... what I'm about to do is to make a provenly vindictive and extremely powerful enemy... the enemy in question is that drivel-merchant, global huckster and so-to-speak media psychopath, Rupert Murdoch... Hannibal the Cannibal.'...
As a performance, it had a lot going for it. I have never seen a talking head on television so immediate or so unabated in its anger. In many ways, it felt like being collared by a madman on the Tube. Filmed disturbingly close to camera, seemingly ad-libbing the entire half-hour, now mumbling, now rasping, Potter somehow managed to cut through the vacuum that on television usually separates viewer from viewee. This made the performance extraordinary. "[17]

Last interview, final works, and death

On 14 February 1994, Potter learned that he hadterminalpancreatic cancerwhich hadmetastasisedto hisliver.[9]It was thought that this was a side effect of the medication he was taking to control hispsoriasis.

On 15 March 1994, three months before his death, Potter gave an interview toMelvyn Bragg,later broadcast on 5 April 1994 byChannel 4(he had broken most of his ties with the BBC as a result of his disenchantment with Directors-GeneralMichael Checklandand especiallyJohn Birt,whom he had famously referred to as a "croak-voicedDalek").[18]Using amorphinecocktail as pain relief, he revealed that he had named his cancer "Rupert", after Rupert Murdoch, who he said represented so much of what he found despicable about the mass media in Britain.[19]He described his work and his determination to continue writing until his death. Telling Bragg that he had two works he intended to finish ( "My only regret is if I die four pages too soon" ), he proposed that these works,Cold LazarusandKaraoke,should be made with the rival BBC and Channel 4 working in collaboration, a suggestion which was accepted.[9]

These two related stories, eventually broadcast in 1996, one set in the present and the other in the far future, both featureAlbert Finneyas the same principal character. Both series were released on DVD on 6 September 2010.

Months before Potter was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer his wife, Margaret Morgan Potter, was diagnosed withbreast cancer.Despite his own deteriorating condition and punishing work schedule, Potter continued to care for Margaret Amy Potter until she died on 29 May 1994.[4]He died nine days later, inRoss-on-Wye,Herefordshire,England, aged 59.

Other works

Novels

Hide and Seek(1973) was ameta-fictionalnovel exploring the relationship between reader and author and contains a central protagonist, 'Daniel Miller', who is convinced he is the plaything of anomniscient author.This concept forms the core of Potter's next two novels, and portions ofHide and Seekwould reappear in several of his television plays (most notablyFollow the Yellow Brick RoadandThe Singing Detective,respectively).

Ticket to Ride(1986) was written between drafts ofThe Singing Detectiveand concerns aherbithologistwho is unable to make love to his wife unless he imagines her as a prostitute. This was followed in 1987 byBlackeyes:a study of a model whose abusive uncle, a writer, has stolen details of his niece's experiences in the glamour industry as the basis for his latestpotboiler.

To tie-in with the release of theMGMproduction ofPennies from Heavenin 1981, Potter wrote a novelisation of the screenplay. Potter turned down the option of writing a novelisation for the film version ofBrimstone and Treacle,allowing his daughter Sarah to write it instead.

Stage plays

Although Potter only produced one play exclusively for theatrical performance (Sufficient Carbohydrate,1983 – later filmed for television asVisitorsin 1987), he adapted several of his television works for the stage.Vote, Vote, Vote for Nigel Barton,which featured material from its sister-playStand Up, Nigel Barton,was premiered in 1966, whileOnly Make Believe,which incorporated scenes fromAngels Are So Few,made the transition to the stage in 1974.Son of Manappeared in 1969 withFrank Finlayin the title role (Finlay would also play Casanova in Potter's 1971 serial) and was restaged byNorthern Stagein 2006.[20]Brimstone and Treaclewas adapted for the stage in 1977 after the BBC refused to screen the original television version. The play text forBlue Remembered Hillswas first published in the collectionWaiting for the Boat(withJoe's ArkandBlade on the Feather) in 1984 and has since enjoyed several successful stage performances. Potter proposed to write an "intermedia" stage play for producers Geisler-Roberdeau based onWilliam Hazlitt’sLiber Amoris, or The New Pygmalion,but he died before it could be commenced.

Style and themes

Potter's work is distinctive for its use of non-naturalistic devices. The 'lip-sync' technique he developed for his "serials with songs" (Pennies from Heaven;The Singing DetectiveandLipstick on Your Collar), extensive use offlashbackandnonlinearplot structure (Casanova;Late Call),direct to camera address(Vote, Vote, Vote for Nigel Barton) and works where "the child is father to the man", in which he used adult actors to play children (Stand Up, Nigel Barton;Blue Remembered Hills) have all become Potter trademarks. They are frequently deployed in works where the line between fantasy and reality becomes blurred, often as a result of the influence of popular culture (Willie, theWild Westobsessive played byHywel BennettinWhere the Buffalo Roam) or from a character's apparent awareness of their status as a pawn in the hands of an omniscient author (the actor Jack Black (Denholm Elliot) inFollow the Yellow Brick Road).

Potter's pioneering method of using music in his work emerged when developing the ground-breaking 1978 dramaPennies from Heaven.He asked actors to mime along to period songs. "Potter tried out the concept himself by lip-syncing to old songs while looking into a mirror. Potter himself once revealed that, working on harnessing songs in his plays, he was most productive 'at night, with oldAl Bowllyrecords playing in the background' ".[21]Potter had previously experimented with Bowlly's voice inMoonlight on the Highway(1969).

Following in this spirit of non-naturalism, Potter's characters are frequently "doubled up"; either byusing the same actor to play two different roles(Kika Markhamas both the actress and the escort inDouble Dare;Norman Rossingtonas Lorenzo the gaoler and the English traveller inCasanova) or two different actors whose characters'destinies and personalities appear interlinked(Bob Hoskins andKenneth Colleyas Arthur and the accordion man inPennies from Heaven;Rufus (Christian Rodska) and Gina the bear inA Beast With Two Backs).

One major motif in Potter's writing is the concept of betrayal, and this takes many forms in his plays. Sometimes it is personal (Stand Up, Nigel Barton), political (Traitor;Cold Lazarus) and other times it is sexual (A Beast With Two Backs;Brimstone and Treacle). InPotter on Potter,published as part ofFaber and Faber's series onauteurs,Potter told editor Graham Fuller that all forms of betrayal presented in literature are essentially religious and based on"the old, old story";this is evoked in a number of works, from the use of popular songs inPennies from Heavento Potter'sgnosticretelling ofJesus' final days inSon of Man.

The "Pinteresque"device of a disruptive outsider entering a claustrophobic environment is another recurring theme. In plays where this occurs, the outsider will commit some liberating act of sex (Rain on the Roof) or violence (Shaggy Dog) that gives physical expression to the unsublimated desires of the characters in that setting. While these more malevolent visitors are often supernatural beings (Angels Are So Few), intelligence agents (Blade on the Feather) or even figments of their host's imagination (Schmoedipus), there are also—rare—instances of benign visitors whose presence resolves personal conflicts rather than exploits them (Joe's Ark;Where Adam Stood).

Personal life

Psoriatic arthropathy

For much of his life from his late 20s on, Potter was frequently in hospitals, sometimes completely unable to move and in great pain. The disease eventually ruined his hands, reducing them to what he called "clubs." He could only write by strapping a pen to his hand.

Criticism

Potter was sometimes attacked by other television writers, most notablyAlan BennettandMatthew Graham,for a perceived lack of humility and self-criticism; Graham described him as having "come undone" afterThe Singing Detectiveand beginning to believe "every line that dripped from his pen was a work of genius". Bennett referred in his 1998 diaries to a television programme "that took Potter at his own self-evaluation (always high), when there was a good deal of indifferent stuff which was skated over".Private Eyeonce lampooned him as Dennis Plodder, due to the slow pace of some of his work, whilst also branding him as "the whingeing playwright".

Legacy

Although Potter won few awards, he is held in high regard by many within the television and film industry, and he was an influence on such creators asSteven Bochco,[22]Alan Ball[citation needed],Andrew Davies,[23]Charlie Kaufman[citation needed],Peter Bowker,[24]Margaret Edson[citation needed]andAlain Resnais.[25]His work has been the subject of many critical essays, books, websites and documentaries.

BBC Four marked the tenth anniversary of Potter's death in December 2004 with a major series of documentaries about his life and work, accompanied by showings ofPennies from HeavenandThe Singing Detective,as well as several of his single plays — many of which had not been shown since their maiden broadcast.[26]His influence has also extended into popular music: Welsh bandManic Street Preachersused quotes from Potter on the inner sleeves to their single "Kevin Carter"andgreatest hitscollection, while Scottishart rockbandFranz Ferdinandmodelled thepromotional videofor their song "The Dark of the Matinée"afterBlue Remembered HillsandThe Singing Detective.Guy Garvey,lead singer withElbow,has said he named his band after the exchange inThe Singing Detectivewhere the central character claims that word to be the most beautiful in the English language.

Potter's papers, including unproduced plays and unpublished fiction, are being catalogued and preserved at theDean Heritage Centrein Gloucestershire.[27]

Sources

Footnotes
  1. ^Arenainterview, 1987
  2. ^"Arena:Painting the Clouds: A Portrait of Dennis Potter",The Encylopaedia of Fantastic Film & Television, 25 December 2004
  3. ^During his speech at the 1993James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture,Potter made a very public reference to this particular event when explaining his decision to switch from newspaper journalism to screenwriting: "Different words had to be found, with different functions. But why? Why, why, why; the same desperately repeated question I asked myself without any sort of an answer, or any ability to tell my mother or my father, when at the age of ten, betweenV.E. DayandV.J. Day,I was trapped by an adult's sexual appetite and abused out of innocence. "
  4. ^abc"Dennis Potter obituary",Daily Telegraph,8 June 1994
  5. ^Humphrey CarpenterThat Was Satire That Was: The Satire Boom in the 1960s,London, 2000, p.232
  6. ^Sergio Angelini"Stand Up, Nigel Barton (1965)",BFI screenonline
  7. ^abSergio Angelini"Vote, Vote, Vote, for Nigel Barton (1965)",BFI xcreenonline
  8. ^InPotter on Potter,the writer told Graham Fuller that he assumed Casanova's drive to seduce so many women was symptomatic oftristitia post coitum(literally, "the sadness after sex" ).
  9. ^abcdCook, John."Potter, Dennis (1935–1994)".BFI Screenonline.
  10. ^Mark LawsonObituary: Dennis Potter,The Independent,8 June 1994
  11. ^Lawson, Mark (31 October 2003)."Watching the detective".The Guardian.{{cite web}}:Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help)
  12. ^John R. CookDennis Potter: A Life on Screen,Manchester University Press, 1998, p.350, n.82
  13. ^The Guardian,16 February 1973, quoted in W. Stephen GilbertThe Life and Work of Dennis Potter,Woodstock, NY: The Overlook Press, 1998, p.145 (originally published asFight and Kick and Bite: Life and Work of Dennis Potter,London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1995)
  14. ^Ben Thompson (ed)Ban This Filth!: Letters From the Mary Whitehouse Archive,London: Faber, 2012, p.85. Melvyn Bragg's interview with Potter, along with an earlierSouth Bank Showitem about a 1978 theatre production of (the then banned)Brimstone and Tracle,is included in the DVD set of the dramatist's work for London Weekend Television.
  15. ^On the DVD commentary for the original television serial, directorPiers Haggardclaims he approached Potter during filming of the series with the suggestion of producing a cinematic version starring the original cast. Potter allegedly responded by telling Haggard "there's no point – we've already done it now!".
  16. ^Sting UK chart history,The Official Charts Company. Retrieved 2 June 2012.
  17. ^Craig Brown "Abuse of Privilege",The Sunday Times,28 March 1993
  18. ^Potter, Dennis (28 August 1993)."Occupying Powers"(reprint).The Guardian.Retrieved12 April2009.
  19. ^BFI."Interview with Dennis Potter, An (1994) Synopsis".
  20. ^Mark Fisher"Son of Man",Variety,24 September 2006
  21. ^The Independent, 7 January 2005, previewingArena - Dennis Potter:It's in the Songs! It's in the Songs!BBC Four
  22. ^Bochco's musical dramaCop Rock(1990) was inspired byThe Singing Detective.
  23. ^In 1990,The Observernewspaper asked several British television screenwriters to nominate the most influential person in the field. Potter was voted the most influential. Davies, who chose Potter, stated that "there can be no writer working in television today, or in any medium, who can claim even half the influence of Dennis Potter."
  24. ^Bowker's BBC drama serialBlackpool(2004) was an attempt to revive British musical drama in the shadow ofPennies from HeavenandThe Singing Detective..
  25. ^His song movieOn connaît la chanson(1997) is dedicated to him.
  26. ^These included theNigel Bartonplays,A Beast with Two Backs,Follow the Yellow Brick Road,Son of Man,Double Dare,Where Adam Stood,Joe's Ark,Brimstone and TreacleandBlue Remembered Hills.
  27. ^Stephen Morris"Dennis Potter archive offers glimpse into mind of celebrated writer",guardian.co.uk, 27 June 2013
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