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- This is the first of Dennis Potter's adaptations from Thomas Hardy (1840-1928). It aired on WESSEX TALES, a BBC2 series devoted to Hardy dramatizations. Hardy was born in Dorsetshire, an area he called Wessex in his writings, including WESSEX POEMS (1898). As in the original short story, two brothers attained respectable positions, but then feel they must do something about their father's lowly status. Five years later, Potter did a BBC2 miniseries adaptation of Hardy's 1886 novel, THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE.
- Written for THE WEDNESDAY PLAY (1964-70), which the BBC retitled PLAY FOR TODAY in 1970, ALICE has the earliest airdate (10/13/65) of the Potter productions to survive on tape. After THE CONFIDENCE COURSE (1965), it's the second of the nine Potter plays seen on THE WEDNESDAY PLAY. In this look at Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898), aka Lewis Carroll, Potter mixed biographical drama with a psychological profile to explore the roots of Dodgson's creativity. Dodgson tells stories to ten-year-old Alice Liddell, leading to recreations of scenes adapted from ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND (1865), designed to resemble the original Sir John Tenniel illustrations.
- For the BBC's WEDNESDAY PLAY series, Dennis Potter offered one of his "visitation dramas": Housewife Cynthia Nicholls is married to prudish Richard Nicholls. One day, her mundane household chores are interrupted by the arrival on her front step of scruffy, coarse Michael Biddle. He claims to be an angel, but on the face of it, he could simply be a deranged street person. She challenges the angel Michael by pointing out that he has no wings.
- Blackeyes is an attempt to explore "what does go on between men and women in their heads, to show the possibilities of the ways that they see each other." Complex and multi-layered, the interweaving narrative threads include novelist Maurice James Kingsley who appropriates accounts by his niece Jessica about her life as a professional model. Kingsley's embellishments become a trashy bestseller, "Sugar Bush," tracing the rise and decline of fictional fashion model Blackeyes, victimized by men. Angry and betrayed, Jessica begins to rewrite Kingsley's novel to set Blackeyes free from the abuse of men.
- While he is in prison, Giacomo Casanova recalls many of his past romances and adventures.
- Writer Daniel Feeld, first seen in Dennis Potter's "Karaoke," returns three centuries later as a disembodied head.
- Past and present intertwine: An elderly couple returns to the hotel where they became close when they were young and flashbacks to the earlier visit reveal the origins of both their pleasures and problems. Somewhere between the past and the present, Dennis Potter attempted to find "the shape of a life, of two lives..."
- Dennis Potter's meta commentary on scriptwriting, as Helen meets writer Martin Ellis in a hotel bar to help with his writer's block. Also there is Carol, an escort girl with her client. But are they real, or merely Martin's imaginings?
- The religious beliefs of pet shop owner Joe (Freddie Jones) are shaken by the terminal illness of his daughter Lucy (Angharad Rees). For Potter, this play "makes more than a wry nod at possibilities which can comprehend pain, or disgust, or the implacable presence of death itself."
- Daniel Feeld is a screenwriter with pains in his gut and a new screenplay called "Karaoke", about a girl named Sandra who works in a seedy Karaoke bar and is murdered by a lowlife named Arthur "Pig" Mallion. But whenever Daniel looks around, real people seem to be speaking his dialogue in real situations that mirror the script, including a beautiful young girl named Sandra who works in a Karaoke bar owned by a Mr. Mallion. Meanwhile, Balmer, the film's director, is in a spot of trouble with the film's leading lady.
- Dennis Potter used his own background as a Russian language clerk in the War Office when writing this play for ITV's SATURDAY NIGHT THEATRE series. At the time of the 1956 Suez Crisis and the Russian invasion of Hungary, Private Bob Hawk reports to the London Intelligence Office where the strength of Soviet troops is under scrutiny.
- 7 men work in a military intelligence office in 1956 London. Hopper is bored translating Russian and imagines rock'n'roll musicals set in the office. Francis dreams of Berry's wife.
- A biography of the 18-century Viennese physician Franz Anton Mesmer, who used unorthodox healing practices based on his theory of "animal magnetism."
- American producer James Boyce and his airhead wife Amber rent an English country mansion where the British horror flick "Smoke Rings" was filmed twenty years previous. Amber's mother was model-actress Mandy Mason, who died mysteriously after her appearance in "Smoke Rings." The property rental to Boyce was arranged by middle-aged lawyer Henry Harris, who continues to live with his lovesick memories of the late actress. Boyce invites Harris to dinner, and "Smoke Rings" airs on TV that same evening. During the following days, Harris observes Amber's schizophrenic behavior veering parallel to events once experienced by her mother and also to the movie's plotline.
- Writing for ITV Saturday Night Theatre (1969), Dennis Potter introduced the notion that popular music expresses the yearning of the human spirit for a better world. A troubled young man, David Peters (Ian Holm), claims, "Once dreams were possible, that's what the popular songs told us." Rejecting rock music of the day, Peters is immersed in the tunes of Thirties crooner Al Bowlly (killed during the London blitz). He collects Bowlly memorabilia, publishes the Bowlly fan-club newsletter, and finds pleasure in lip-synching Bowlly records but his obsession with Bowlly masks certain darker events in his past.
- Playwright Christopher Hudson finds his medical problem hinders his writing. He employs secretary Sandra George and dictates his new play to her, but tensions soon develop between the two. As Hudson creates, scenes from his play are dramatized and interpolated. The play being created is Dennis Potter's Angels Are So Few, seen with a totally different cast from the 1970 BBC production.
- Facing retirement, elderly journalist Clarence Hubbard reflects on the pointlessness of a life wasted writing banal tabloid human interest, animal, and crime stories. Rather than go quietly to tend roses in a garden, Hubbard begins a series of violent actions not unlike those described in tabloids, and this is heightened by inter cutting tabloid headlines between scenes. Throughout, there are occasional shots of a television critic who watches this very play as it unfolds, and he writes a negative review filled with cleverly phrased but bitter invective.
- Another of Dennis Potter's "visitation dramas": Adultery by John disturbs Janet, so she flirts with the simple, mistreated Billy during the middle of giving him a reading lesson. Unfortunately, it triggers aggressive behavior in Billy which he directs toward John.
- A no-nonsense businessman, Mr. Wilkie, is interviewed for a position with a top-of-the-line hotel chain corporation. During the interview, Wilkie attempts to complete a shaggy-dog story. His frustrations lead to a total breakdown. He suddenly snaps and pulls a gun on the interviewers.
- This was Dennis Potter's first play for independent TV in Great Britain. It aired on ITV's PLAYHOUSE series. Potter contrasted the fading heritage of the British empire with new American values, embodying national traits in his central characters proper British businessman George King, a London suburbanite, who encounters loud and crass sailor Sam Adams, an American who is disrespectful of British culture and traditions.
- Linda is still tormented by giving up a baby for adoption at 15. She wants a baby, but her husband has enough in his model trains, mistress and being a doctor.
- This production for the BBC-2's "Screen Two" series was the last of Dennis Potter's "one-shot, one-slot" plays for television. It had its origins in Potter's 1983 play "Sufficient Carbohydrate," about two middle-aged executives, one English, one American, who both work for the same multinational food company. Together, they vacation with their wives on a Greek island. In the TV adaptation, British businessman Jack becomes bitter as he faces the prospect of seeing his family company taken over by an American corporation. On a holiday at an Italian villa with his new manager, Eddie, he begins to stir up antagonism prompting Eddie's son Clayton to fantasize a murderous outcome.