The Singing Detective: addictive and avant garde – even 25 years on
Dennis Potter's masterpiece, repeated on BBC4 from this evening, makes even the best current drama look like amateur hour
Bbc 4 22:00 hrs
Part 1
1986.
Philip E Marlow lies in a hospital bed that could be in a 70s sitcom. His dreams enter 1940s noir, with mystery, song and thrills. His memories of growing up in post-industrial mining towns blur in and out of both settings. It's sort of a musical, sort of a thriller, sort of a comedy … it's the pinnacle of the golden age. The golden age of the 1980s, that is.
Dennis Potter's masterpiece is 25 years old but still feels avant garde. It's got the kind of confidence in the audience and in the medium that American writers are only just discovering. The smouldering Brit-made-good Damian Lewis – talking in Los Angeles about his Golden Globe-winning cable drama Homeland (coming to More4 this month) – said it was a shame that we don't have the writers to pen that sort of stuff in the UK. Well, we did once.
Part 2 bbc4 10:00pm Thursday
Marlow faces his personal misery of the talking cure with the psychologist who wants to help him with his psychosomatic psoriasis and has actually read Marlow's novel. Nicola, an ambitious and demanding actress, appears in Marlow's hospital ward just as he is thinking about her. Marlow is suspicious of his former wife, and his wretched state exposes his vulnerability. Only the fact that his imagination is running riot keeps him occupied.
Duration: 1 hour, 10 minutes
Dennis Potter's masterpiece, repeated on BBC4 from this evening, makes even the best current drama look like amateur hour
Bbc 4 22:00 hrs
Part 1
1986.
Philip E Marlow lies in a hospital bed that could be in a 70s sitcom. His dreams enter 1940s noir, with mystery, song and thrills. His memories of growing up in post-industrial mining towns blur in and out of both settings. It's sort of a musical, sort of a thriller, sort of a comedy … it's the pinnacle of the golden age. The golden age of the 1980s, that is.
Dennis Potter's masterpiece is 25 years old but still feels avant garde. It's got the kind of confidence in the audience and in the medium that American writers are only just discovering. The smouldering Brit-made-good Damian Lewis – talking in Los Angeles about his Golden Globe-winning cable drama Homeland (coming to More4 this month) – said it was a shame that we don't have the writers to pen that sort of stuff in the UK. Well, we did once.
Part 2 bbc4 10:00pm Thursday
Marlow faces his personal misery of the talking cure with the psychologist who wants to help him with his psychosomatic psoriasis and has actually read Marlow's novel. Nicola, an ambitious and demanding actress, appears in Marlow's hospital ward just as he is thinking about her. Marlow is suspicious of his former wife, and his wretched state exposes his vulnerability. Only the fact that his imagination is running riot keeps him occupied.
Duration: 1 hour, 10 minutes
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