The great television dramatist Dennis Potter brought four things to sustain him through his last, hour long, interview. To me, they speak of Potter himself, his art and of this interview, often cited as his final great work:
Cigarettes: Dying of terminal cancer, but with a cigarette firmly in hand, they speak of his subversive, transgressive spirit, of his sardonic humour in the shadow of death.
Black coffee: His dedication and determination to continue his art to the very end, still rising at 5am every morning to write before the pain set in.
Liquid morphine: Speaking of the pain that shaped his entire writing career, living with an agonising skin condition since his mid-twenties.
A glass of champagne: the urgent celebration of pleasure in the present moment, the ‘thrilled lyricism’, as one commentator put it, of Potter’s reflections of life and death, England and art.
My parents watched every television drama by Potter… ‘Blue Remembered Hills’; ‘Pennies from Heaven’ ‘The Singing Dectective.’ I was too young to remember these groundbreaking dramas live. Yet, as a young teenager in 1994, I do remember watching this incredible piece of television. Potter ends the piece with an informal comment to his interviewer Melvyn Bragg: ‘At certain points, I felt I was flying with it.’ The following clip is just such a moment:
