Kirjahaku

This is the unabridged original text of Dennis Potter's acclaimed six-part television serial. The narrative counterpoints life in a hospital ward of a writer crippled by a horrific skin disease with the plot of his atmospheric thriller to the point where fantasy and reality seem to exchange places. The result is the most painful and disturbing screen drama of the 1980s.

Contains the interview between Dennis Potter and Melvyn Bragg conducted on 5 April 1994 on Channel 4 television. Potter knew he had only a few weeks to live so the discussion is of great poignancy and power. Their conversation records Potter's honest dissection of his life and work. This book also contains Potter's celebrated James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture at the Edinburgh Film Festival in 1993 and an earlier BBC2 television interview.

Dennis Potter here introduces three of his acclaimed works, Blue Remembered Hills (1979), Joe's Ark (1974) and Cream in My Coffee (1980), and discusses the artistic potential and the limitations of a constantly evolving medium. Blue Remembered Hills: 'The novelty is that the leading characters, a group of seven-year-old children, are played by adult actors. It is a brilliant device, employed not as a gimmick but to suggest that youthful behaviour is carried over into the grown-up world . . . Blue Remembered Hills won the BAFTA Award for Best Play in 1979 and is a landmark in television drama.' The Times

This clever, disturbing, and controversial play revolves around Mr. and Mrs. Bates, a dull, middle aged couple whose only daughter, Pattie, has been reduced to a vegetable following a car accident. Suddenly, a polite, helpful and clean cut but satanic young man walks into their lives with startling results.2 women, 2 men

This deceptively simple tale relates the activities of seven English children played by adults on a summer afternoon during World War II. In a woods, a field and a barn, they play, fight, fantasize and swagger. Their aggressions, fears, hostilities and rivalries are a microcosm of adult interaction. Easy going Willie tags along as burly Peter bullies Raymond and is challenged by fair minded Paul. Plain Audrey is overshadowed by Angela's prettiness and wreaks her anger on the boys. All of them gang up on the terrified "Donald Duck" who, abused by his mother and ridiculed by his peers, plays a dangerous game of pyromania with tragic results.

The key to a bold and original approach to the mission, arrest, trial and death of Jesus is the title; Son of Man. He is portrayed as a man agonized by the feeling of divinity within him, and with all a man's capacity for suffering and pain. "Father, let me be just a man," he cries; and, to his disciples. "He (Son of Man) cannot be other than a man, or else God has cheated-- and so my Father in Heaven will abandon me to myself." The play also strongly reflects the historical and political situation in which the events occur-- and examines in a new light the character and motives of Judas Iscariot.-3 women, 27 men

The author was born and brought up in the Forest of Dean. This title presents his personal study of that small area - its people, traditions, ceremonies and institutions - at a time of profound cultural and social change in the late 1950s and early '60s.

Dennis Potter (1935-94) was Britain’s leading television dramatist for almost thirty years and remains an inspiration to today’s programme makers as a result of such ground-breaking work as Pennies from Heaven, Blue Remembered Hills and The Singing Detective. But he also engaged with his audience through reviews, journalism, interviews, broadcasts and speeches. The Art of Invective, the first collection of its kind, brings together some of his finest non-fiction work. Published to mark 80 years since Potter’s birth, this book includes his merciless television columns, penetrating literary criticism and angry writings on class and politics, as well as his sketches for Sixties satire shows including That Was the Week That Was. From Frost-Nixon to Coronation Street, David Hare to Doctor Who, Orwell to Emu, this collection shows Potter’s distinctive voice at its entertaining, thought-provoking and uncompromising best.