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Amazon.co.uk Review
Dennis Potter was a brave man. His private life was a torture of extreme psoriasis coupled with arthritis that turned his hands into claws and his skin into snowflakes. His public life was a constant bombardment of censorial criticism as he pushed the boundaries of television with his challenging psychosexual dramas. Despite this, his genius was never questioned and the viewing public was forced to readjust their couch position. The biography takes us from Potter's childhood in the Forest of Dean, through a highly political Oxford career up to his marriage, to his childhood and lifelong sweetheart. After this the work becomes a mutated hybrid of Potter's own life and his dream world constructed from songs and sexual fantasies. Carpenter treads carefully; there are still many living friends and relatives, and some of the material is emotionally complex. He presents Potter through detailed accounts of his work and extensive interviews with friends, lovers and colleagues, leaving readers to make up their own minds about this fiery, brilliant, demanding man. Potter's life has often been reduced to a tabloid blur of slur and, as a writer, he is mainly known forPennies from Heaven. There was much more to him than that. Carpenter's offers readers a chance to see the man in all his guises. --Hannah Griffiths
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
Dennis Potter's death in 1994 deprived British television of its most controversial figure. Potter was a prolific writer of genius. Yet while his subversive television plays, such as Pennies from Heaven and The Singing Detective, scandalized and delighted the nation, they also made him the butt of the tabloids, who nicknamed him 'Dirty Den' for his 1989 serial Blackeyes.
Humphrey Carpenter, acclaimed biographer of Tolkien, Auden, Pound, Britten and Robert Runcie, interviewed everyone who came close to Potter, and had exclusive access to Potter's archives, including the many unmade television and film scripts. Carpenter portrays a very different Potter from the aggressive public image: a deeply shy and reclusive man, who was psychologically as well as physically scarred by the illness which struck him down at the age of twenty-six. Potter was a man with a vast interest in sex but also a terrible loathing of it, thanks to an appalling experience he suffered in childhood.
Potter was a man much gossiped about. Carpenter's remarkable biography establishes the extraordinary truth behind the rumours; describes Potter's strange, obsessive relationships with women such as Gina Bellman, who played Blackeyes; and gives a vivid portrait of the backstage dramas and fights behind Potter's screen triumphs.
'What is valuable about this book is that it reveals Potter's real private life, which barely features in his plays ... A wonderfully vivid portrait of the man: his generosity and cruelty, his coarseness and tenderness, and the thwarted sexual yearning that underlay everything.' Lynn Barber, Daily Telegraph
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Whether or not you are aware of Potter's work this is an engaging and thougt-provoking read. It is written so well that at times it almost reads as a novel and even if you aren't a fan of Potter's work you will want to follow the story and may be inspired to discover what made him such a great name in the world of TV and theatre. A real investigation into how one's childhood can shape the rest of one's life as well as an indepth look at a brilliant man's work.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3 reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Dennis Potter Explained
8 Dec 1999
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Dennis Potter wrote remarkable things about ordinary people. He may be best remembered for his musical trilogy covering the '30s ("Pennies From Heaven"), '40's ("The Singing Detective"), and the '50s ("Lipstick On Your Collar") employing the device of using popular music to express the hidden thoughts of his characters ... and not new, emotion-charged renditions of the music of those times mind you, but actual phonograph records of the original British artists. Can there be more pathos than bedraggled Arthur Parker in "Pennies From Heaven" lip-synching the bright romantic tune "Roll Along Prairie Moon" ... or more horror than Philip Marlow in "The Singing Detective" witnessing nurses and doctors performing a big production number around the novelty song "Dry Bones", convinced that his illness is making him lose his mind? This biography is a treasure for Potter enthusiasts, going a long distance explaining the root cause of his innovative genius. I personally was thrilled to see that there is a link between Potter and American author Alice Hoffman (hint: it's revealed toward the end of the book -- but no fair using the index!).
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Revealing Glimpse of the Genius of TV plays
19 Oct 1999
Format:Hardcover
Without question, Dennis Potter changed the way we think about TV drama. Or, at least he did in the UK. In the US, his work has had very little exposure. The bio is fair, and explains a lot of Potter's obsessions (they all became material for his work, which is a deconstructionist's paradise). A little repetitive in places, Carpenter gives us a non-hagiographical overview of the guy behind the twisted visions.
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful
A ponderousm pedestrian tome, not worthy of Carpenter
11 Jun 1999
Format:Hardcover
Ken Trodd, like Potter a "scholarship boy" at Oxford, went on to produce Potter's finest works in a relationship bubbling with catalytic ferment and often boiling or exploding. As Trodd observes (in a probably unpublished review)he personally appears in this biography more often than DP's wife,mother,or agent, but his relevant insights, like his essential role in DPs creativity, are not apparent. Carpenter was not given to hack P.R jobs! Whyever did he agree to an "authorized" (i.e. supervised and censored) biography?
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