The Singing Detective

[Chris Newman]

Strange. First time round I found it depressing. Maybe it is having been in hospital for more serious things than tonsils but I found Episode One very moving. Now I see why people rave about Michael Gambon's performance. Last time round I thought it was too much like E.L.Wisty. I find Dennis Potter rather like a Socialist extension of Dylan Thomas. Does that make sense?

[Anna]

Just now watched it, only because don't think it is on iplayer. A Dennis Potter season would be great, interview last night with Alan Yentob. No, your comparision with Dylan does not make sense

[Chris Newman]

No, your comparision with Dylan does not make sense

It is just I find a similar humour to Under Milk Wood, although maybe much more cynical. Perhaps, the hospital as a village? I am probably waffling.

[Flay]

Just now watched it, only because don't think it is on iplayer.

It is on iplayer now!

Michael Gambon is a great actor. A wonderful voice. I never sent you that recording of him doing Beckett's Embers, did I? Would you like it?

[kernelbogey]

At the time I thought The Singing Detective the greatest thing I'd ever seen on television. Agreement on this in The Guardian yesterday:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2012/feb/02/singing-detective-addictive-bbc4

[johnb]

I wonder whether other people remember the remarkable interview that Denis Potter gave (with Melvyn Bragg) when he was dying and during which he had to take frequent slugs of a morphine mixture in order to carry on.

It was one of the most remarkable things I have ever seen on TV. (Luckily I recorded it when it was rebroadcast some years later.)

(I've recorded the Alan Yentob interview, broadcast on Wednesday, and the first episode of The Singing Detective for later viewing.)

[kernelbogey]

I wonder whether other people remember the remarkable interview that Denis Potter gave (with Melvyn Bragg) when he was dying and during which he had to take frequent slugs of a morphine mixture in order to carry on.
It was one of the most remarkable things I have ever seen on TV.

Yes I remember and agree. Two specific memories:

He called his cancer 'Rupert'.

And he referred to the apple tree outside his window as having 'the blossomest blossom'.

[Anna]

I didn't see the Singing Detective when first broadcast (I assume this is the first repeat?) so that is why I am watching. I do remember the interview with Melvyn Bragg, other Potter I remember are Pennies from Heaven and Blue Remembered Hills. I think I read an article recently that the BBC were going to repeat the SD last November but couldn't come up with the cash demanded by the Potter Estate until someone (cannot remember who) donated the necessary. Perhaps this is why there have been no repeats over the years?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

(I assume this is the first repeat?)

I'm fairly "sure" that it has had at least one repeat before this one - a couple of years after the first showing. So far as my memory can be trusted, I've seen it twice: the first run (when I lived in London) and then the repeat (when I lived near Brighton).

Of course, the alternative possibility is that the series made such an impression on me that I just think I've seen it twice!?

[VodkaDilc]

I am looking forward to seeing the Singing Detective again - and I certainly remember the South Bank Show interview. Much as I enjoyed The Singing Detective (including seeing an ex-pupil in the "Dem Bones" scene), I think I enjoyed the later "Lipstick on your Collar" more - the one with a very young Ewan McGregor in the main role and lots of splendid British character actors in support. Perhaps the music jerked some very early memories for me; this was the one set at the time of the Suez crisis.
Would I be showing a streak of vulgarity if I said that, for all the thought-provoking elements of the Potter plays, it's the imaginative music scenes which I remember best?