The Singing Detective [DVD] [1986]

Good drama depends on three factors: script, acting and production/direction. Dennis Potter's script is one of the finest he produced. Whilst a crime writer, with a horrible skin condition, lies in hospital, his thoughts turn to one of his books. He looks back on some incidents from his childhood. He imagines hospital staff dancing to 1930's popular songs (some memorable scenes here). One moment there is laughter, the next, pathos. And gradually the threads are brought together leading to a surprisingly upbeat ending. Michael Gambon's performance as the writer Marlow is stunning, yet this is one of those series where everyone's is a fine performance. Production is excellent: those crazy dance scenes must have taken some work.

The extras are considerable, including excerpts from 'Points of View' (I never did understand what all the fuss about the 'sex' scene was about) , and a Close Up documentary I had never seen before, with some interesting and relevant observations on Potter's life and works.

At just fifteen pounds for the set-3 discs-this is astonishing value and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

It is a testament to Potter's ability as a screenwriter that the whole thing zips along so quickly, with the multi-layered story never pausing for a moment... being carried along at every step by the combined genius of Potter's characters, the skilful and visually sublime direction of Jon Amiel and that towering central performance from the brilliant Michael Gambon. The writing is truly ecstatic (or explicit, depending on your appreciation of foul mouthed monologues and narration delivered straight to camera) with Potter obviously relishing every chance he gets to play with both the musical and detective-movie clichés - bringing to mind both Casablanca and Potter's own-classic Pennies From Heaven - whilst the dialog of Gambon's inner-monologues have more in common with the profane poetry of writers like Mike Leigh and David Leland etc. The story also has political overtones (didn't everything in the 80's?) with Potter using the hospital setting of the present sequences to double as an allegory of 80's Britain under the tyrannical leadership of Margaret Thatcher (bringing to mind the Elvis Costello song Tramp the Dirt Down and that other hospital set political parable, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest).

The story is also somewhat semi-autobiographical from Potter's point of view with the writer, at this point in time, suffering from the same psoriatic-arthritis that Gambon's character Marlow has (creating that devastating, iconic image of the paralytic Marlow languishing half-naked in bed, being greased by a young Joanne Whally!!). There are also the much deeper autobiographical aspects with the young Marlow's childhood in the shady and evergreen Forest of Dean, in which the pastoral setting gives way to some truly shocking moments (recalling similar childhood traumas from such diverse examples as Iain Bank's Complicity and Rob Reiner's film Stand by Me). However, within this mire of bitterness, surrealism, bouts of lip-synced cabaret and phantasmagorical shoot-outs, there is also a great deal of humour. Anyone who has seen one of Potter's early TV plays or, for that matter, later classics like Karaoke and Cold Lazarus will know of his depth and range as both a humorist and a satirist... and it is this darkly acerbic wit that underlines the central narrative strands of The Singing Detective.

Some would argue that this is the best that television has to offer, though I would politely disagree. The Singing Detective is a work of art too good for TV. Now, thanks to the magic of DVD we have the chance to experience Potter's classic in it's definitive unabridged, unedited, uninterrupted from. The screen restoration and the sound are all perfect with this digital transfer, bringing out the intricacies in Amiel's framing, whilst that wonderfully anachronistic use of sound is more thrilling than ever... There are also a couple of documentary extracts from TV programmes at the time that look specifically at Potter the writer and his influence on the way television is/was shaping, as well as extracts from the points of view episode in which almost half of Britain complained about the almost endless onslaught of 'gratuitous sex, profane-humour, stark-violence and un-Godly behaviour'! Meanwhile the commentary track from the director and producer (Ken Trodd) respectively sheds some light on the controversy, as well as reflecting on Potter's passing, and the legacy of this great piece of work...