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75-461: Dennis Christopher George Potter (17 May 1935 – 7 June 1994) was an English television dramatist , screenwriter and journalist. He is best known for his BBC television serials Pennies from Heaven (1978) and The Singing Detective (1986) as well as the BBC television plays Blue Remembered Hills (1979) and Brimstone and Treacle (1976). His television dramas mixed fantasy and reality ,

150-482: A murder mystery play which is the longest-running West End show , it has by far the longest run of any play in the world, with its 29,500th performance having taken place as of February 2024. Contemporary playwrights in the United States are affected by recent declines in theatre attendance. No longer the only outlet for serious drama or entertaining comedies, theatrical productions must use ticket sales as

225-508: A British film made by Potter's own production company (Pennies Productions), the casting of Sting piqued the interest of American investors. As a result, references to Mr Bates' membership of the National Front and a scene discussing racial segregation were omitted—as were many of the non-naturalistic flourishes present in the television production—although the film was much more graphic in its depiction of sexual abuse and rape. The film

300-585: A children's film. Potter's reputation within the American film industry following the box office disappointments of Pennies from Heaven and Gorky Park ultimately led to difficulty receiving backing for his projects. Potter is known to have written adaptations of The Phantom of the Opera , The Mystery of Edwin Drood , The White Hotel and his earlier television play Double Dare (1976): all these reached

375-555: A cinema release owing to a lack of interest from distributors and remained unseen until after Potter's death. It was finally broadcast on BBC2 in December 1994 in the Screen Two series, two months after a remake of his lost 1967 play Message for Posterity was transmitted. A film version of The Singing Detective , based on Potter's own adapted screenplay, was released in 2003 by Icon Productions . Robert Downey, Jr. played

450-572: A disruptive outsider entering a claustrophobic environment is another theme. In plays where this occurs, the outsider will commit some apparently liberating act of evil (rape in Brimstone and Treacle ) or violence (murder in Shaggy Dog ) that gives physical expression to the un-sublimated desires of the characters in that setting. While these more malevolent visitors are often supernatural beings ( Angels Are So Few ), intelligence agents ( Blade on

525-477: A dramatic form—a play. (The homophone with "write" is coincidental.) The first recorded use of the term "playwright" is from 1605, 73 years before the first written record of the term "dramatist". It appears to have been first used in a pejorative sense by Ben Jonson to suggest a mere tradesman fashioning works for the theatre. Jonson uses the word in his Epigram 49, which is thought to refer to John Marston or Thomas Dekker : Jonson described himself as

600-548: A novel. An exposé of the Dale Carnegie Institute, it drew threats of litigation from that organisation. Although Potter effectively disowned the play, excluding it from his Who's Who entry, it used non-naturalistic dramatic devices (in this case breaking the fourth wall ) which would become hallmarks of Potter's subsequent work. The Confidence Course script was liked by Wednesday Play script editor Roger Smith who then commissioned Potter to write what became

675-654: A playwright, winning awards for his play The Phoenix at both the New York International Fringe Festival in 1999 and the Route 66 American Playwriting Competition in 2000. Today, theatre companies have new play development programs meant to develop new American voices in playwriting. Many regional theatres have hired dramaturges and literary managers in an effort to showcase various festivals for new work, or bring in playwrights for residencies. Funding through national organizations, such as

750-547: A poet, not a playwright, since plays during that time were written in meter and so were regarded as the province of poets. This view was held as late as the early 19th century. The term "playwright" later again lost this negative connotation. The earliest playwrights in Western literature with surviving works are the Ancient Greeks . These early plays were for annual Athenian competitions among play writers held around

825-579: A reaction to a programme like that, achieving such intimacy with an audience. Nothing stacks up against it in terms of impact." Potter's final commission came from The Daily Telegraph Arts & Books section, prompted by the TV interview in March, to which he replied on 16 May, after honouring his television commitments: "I am pleased to tell you that I have completed Karaoke and Cold Lazarus – which I regard as essentially one eight-part piece. Now all that effort

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900-408: A reaction to the decadence of Charles II era productions, sentimental comedy grew in popularity. Playwrights like Colley Cibber and Richard Steele believed that humans were inherently good but capable of being led astray. The Italian Renaissance brought about a stricter interpretation of Aristotle, as this long-lost work came to light in the late 15th century. The neoclassical ideal, which

975-525: A source of income, which has caused many of them to reduce the number of new works being produced. For example, Playwrights Horizons produced only six plays in the 2002–03 seasons, compared with thirty-one in 1973–74. Playwrights commonly encounter difficulties in getting their shows produced and often cannot earn a living through their plays alone, leading them to take up other jobs to supplement their incomes. Many playwrights are also film makers . For instance, filmmaker Morgan Spurlock began his career as

1050-407: A television playwright. He had begun to suffer in 1962 from a condition known as psoriatic arthropathy causing arthritis to develop in his joints as well as affecting his skin with psoriasis . It also made futile any attempt to follow a conventional career path. Potter's career as a television playwright began with The Confidence Course ( The Wednesday Play , 1965) which Potter had begun as

1125-508: Is amongst the most famous playwrights in literature, both in England and across the world. The word "play" is from Middle English pleye , from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsperson or builder (as in a wheelwright or cartwright ). The words combine to indicate a person who has "wrought" words, themes, and other elements into

1200-517: Is known for its use of non-naturalistic devices. These include the extensive use of flashback and nonlinear plot structure ( Casanova ; Late Call ), direct to camera address ( Vote, Vote, Vote for Nigel Barton ) and works where "the child is father to the man", in which he used adult actors to play children ( Stand Up, Nigel Barton ; Blue Remembered Hills ). The ' lip-sync ' technique he developed for his "serials with songs" ( Pennies from Heaven ; The Singing Detective and Lipstick on Your Collar )

1275-414: Is of course evaporating into an overwhelming sense of loss, I itch to scribble something ." Immediately he was prompted to consider "the prospect of confronting imminent death" and on 25 May he submitted "my first and last short story" titled "Last Pearls", which was published on 4 June, days before he died. The two related stories, Karaoke and Cold Lazarus , were eventually broadcast in 1996. One set in

1350-717: Is perhaps the best known of the Potter trademarks. They are frequently used in works where the line between fantasy and reality becomes blurred, often as a result of the influence of popular culture (Willie, the Wild West obsessive played by Hywel Bennett in Where the Buffalo Roam ) or from a character's apparent awareness of their status as a pawn in the hands of an omniscient author (the actor Jack Black (Denholm Elliott) in Follow

1425-578: Is sexual ( A Beast With Two Backs ; Brimstone and Treacle ). In Potter on Potter , published as part of Faber and Faber 's series on auteurs , Potter told editor Graham Fuller that all forms of betrayal presented in literature are essentially religious and based on "the old, old story" ; this is evoked in a number of works, from the use of popular songs in Pennies from Heaven to Potter's gnostic retelling of Jesus ' final days in Son of Man . The device of

1500-542: Is still useful to playwrights today is the " French scene ", which is a scene in a play where the beginning and end are marked by a change in the makeup of the group of characters onstage rather than by the lights going up or down or the set being changed. Notable playwrights: Greek theater was alive and flourishing on the island of Crete. During the Cretan Renaissance two notable Greek playwrights Georgios Chortatzis and Vitsentzos Kornaros were present in

1575-679: The EastEnders character) by the British tabloid press, and resulted in a period of reclusion from television. The serial was adapted into a novel (see below), In 1990, referring to a scene in The Singing Detective , Mary Whitehouse claimed on BBC Radio that Potter had been influenced by witnessing his mother engaging in adulterous sex. Potter's mother won substantial damages from the BBC and The Listener . Potter had at least at times actually been an admirer of Mrs Whitehouse:

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1650-461: The City Dionysia's competition (the most prestigious of the festivals to stage drama), playwrights were required to present a tetralogy of plays (though the individual works were not necessarily connected by story or theme), which usually consisted of three tragedies and one satyr play. For the ancient Greeks, playwriting involved poïesis , "the act of making". This is the source of

1725-754: The Dean Heritage Centre in Gloucestershire. Potter married Margaret Amy Morgan (14 August 1933 – 29 May 1994) on 10 January 1959, at the Christ Church parish church in Berry Hill. They lived at Ross-on-Wye , Herefordshire , and had three children, Robert, Jane, and Sarah. In 1961, while covering a meeting of the Young Conservatives, Potter was suddenly unable to rise from the press table and his knee felt hot. He

1800-624: The National Endowment for the Arts and the Theatre Communications Group , encouraged the partnerships of professional theatre companies and emerging playwrights. Playwrights will often have a cold reading of a script in an informal sitdown setting, which allows them to evaluate their own plays and the actors performing them. Cold reading means that the actors haven't rehearsed the work, or may be seeing it for

1875-590: The Suez Crisis of 1956 like the much earlier Lay Down Your Arms (1970), elements of which it recycled, this six-parter did not become a popular success and in it Potter returned to use of lip-synched musical numbers in the manner of Pennies from Heaven . It helped to launch the career of actor Ewan McGregor . On 15 March 1994, three months before his death while his health was deteriorating, Potter gave an interview to Melvyn Bragg , later broadcast on 5 April 1994 by Channel 4 . He had broken most of his ties with

1950-459: The interregnum , and Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, there was a move toward neoclassical dramaturgy. Between the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 and the end of the 17th century, classical ideas were in vogue. As a result, critics of the time mostly rated Shakespeare below John Fletcher and Ben Jonson. This period saw the first professional woman playwright, Aphra Behn . As

2025-468: The 13th century. The majority of these plays come from France and Germany and are similar in tone and form, emphasizing sex and bodily excretions. The best known playwright of farces is Hans Sachs (1494–1576) who wrote 198 dramatic works. In England, The Second Shepherds' Play of the Wakefield Cycle is the best known early farce. However, farce did not appear independently in England until

2100-584: The 16th century with the work of John Heywood (1497–1580). Playwright William Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted. Most playwrights of the period typically collaborated with others at some point, as critics agree Shakespeare did, mostly early and late in his career. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. In England, after

2175-473: The 5th century BC. Such notables as Aeschylus , Sophocles , Euripides , and Aristophanes established forms still relied on by their modern counterparts. We have complete texts extant by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides . The origins of Athenian tragedy remain obscure, though by the 5th century it was institutionalised in competitions ( agon ) held as part of festivities celebrating Dionysos (the god of wine and fertility ). As contestants in

2250-633: The BBC as a result of his disenchantment with Directors-General Michael Checkland and John Birt . Using a morphine and champagne cocktail as pain relief, and chain smoking , he revealed that he had named his cancer "Rupert", after Rupert Murdoch , who Potter said represented so much of what he found despicable about the mass media in Britain. He described his work and his determination to continue writing until his death. Telling Bragg that he had two works he intended to finish, he proposed that these works, Karaoke and Cold Lazarus , should be made with

2325-543: The English traveller in Casanova ) or two actors whose characters' destinies and personalities appear linked (Bob Hoskins and Kenneth Colley as Arthur and the accordion man in Pennies from Heaven ; Rufus ( Christian Rodska ) and Gina the bear in A Beast With Two Backs ). A motif in Potter's writing is the concept of betrayal and this takes many forms in his plays. Sometimes it is personal ( Stand Up, Nigel Barton ), political ( Traitor ; Cold Lazarus ) and other times it

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2400-424: The English word poet . Despite Chinese Theatre having performers dated back to the 6th century BC with You Meng , their perspective of theatre was such that plays had no other role than "performer" or "actor", but given that the performers were also the ones who invented their performances, they could be considered a form of playwright. Outside of the Western world there is Indian classical drama , with one of

2475-601: The Feather ) or even figments of their host's imagination ( Schmoedipus ), there are also—rare—instances of benign visitors whose presence resolves personal conflicts rather than exploits them ( Joe's Ark ; Where Adam Stood ). Although Potter won few awards, he was and remains held in high regard by many within the television and film industry and was an influence on such creators as Mark Frost , Steven Bochco , Andrew Davies , Alain Resnais and Peter Bowker . Alan Bennett

2550-461: The Night (1985) with Mary Steenburgen as Nicole Diver. The Singing Detective (1986), featuring Michael Gambon , used the dramatist's own problems with the skin disease psoriasis , for Potter an often debilitating condition leading to hospital admission, as a means to merge the lead character's imagination with his perception of reality. Following Christabel (1988), Potter's adaptation of

2625-519: The Sun" and Garry Bushell "that sub-literate homophobic , sniggering rictus of a lout". His talk was published in The Guardian in abbreviated form as "Murdoch's Desolate View of Human Life" Craig Brown described the programme in the ( Rupert Murdoch owned) Sunday Times : The last serial broadcast during Potter's lifetime was the romantic comedy Lipstick on Your Collar (1993). Set during

2700-552: The Week That Was . Their first piece was used in the edition of 5 January 1963. Potter stood as the Labour Party candidate for Hertfordshire East , a safe Conservative Party seat, in the 1964 general election against the incumbent Derek Walker-Smith . By the end of the unsuccessful campaign, he claimed that he was so disillusioned with party politics he did not even vote for himself. Potter now embarked on work as

2775-483: The Yellow Brick Road (1972) and The Singing Detective . Ticket to Ride (1986) was written between drafts of The Singing Detective and concerns a herbithologist who is unable to make love to his wife unless he imagines her as a prostitute. This was followed in 1987 by Blackeyes : a study of a model whose abusive uncle, a writer, has stolen details of his niece's experiences in the glamour industry as

2850-411: The Yellow Brick Road first broadcast in 1972). Potter's pioneering method of using music in his work emerged when developing Pennies from Heaven (1978), one of his biggest successes. He asked actors to mime along to period songs. "Potter tried out the concept himself by lip-syncing to old songs while looking into a mirror. Potter himself once revealed that, working on harnessing songs in his plays, he

2925-598: The basis for his latest potboiler . To tie-in with the release of the MGM production of Pennies from Heaven in 1981, Potter wrote a novelisation of the screenplay. Potter turned down the option of writing a novelisation for the film version of Brimstone and Treacle , allowing his daughter Sarah Potter to write it instead. Although Potter only produced one play exclusively for theatrical performance ( Sufficient Carbohydrate , 1983 – later filmed for television as Visitors in 1987), he adapted several of his television scripts for

3000-566: The cinema. The ensuing film, Track 29 (1988), directed by Nicolas Roeg , was Potter's last filmed American project. However, Potter did provide uncredited script work on James and the Giant Peach (released 1995)—his chief contribution providing dialogue for the sardonic caterpillar. Potter makes a sly reference to this in Karaoke when the character Daniel Feeld ( Albert Finney ) is invited to provide dialogue for an "arthritic goat" in

3075-527: The first time, and usually, the technical requirements are minimal. The O'Neill Festival offers summer retreats for young playwrights to develop their work with directors and actors. Playwriting collectives like 13P and Orbiter 3 gather members together to produce, rather than develop, new works. The idea of the playwriting collective is in response to plays being stuck in the development process and never advancing to production. David Nathan (journalist) Too Many Requests If you report this error to

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3150-528: The grandest word – art". Potter wrote the screenplay for Dreamchild (1985), a film which shared themes with his script for the Alice (1965) television play. In her last film role, Coral Browne portrayed the elderly Alice Hargreaves who recalls in flashbacks her childhood when she was the inspiration for Lewis Carroll 's Alice in Wonderland . Potter adapted his television play Schmoedipus (1974) for

3225-430: The journalist Stanley Reynolds found in 1973 that he "loves the idea of Mrs Whitehouse. He sees her as standing up for all the people with ducks on their walls who have been laughed at and treated like rubbish by the sophisticated metropolitan minority". In 1979 in an interview for The South Bank Show , he rejected "the chorus of abuse" suffered by Whitehouse because she accepted the "central moral importance of – to use

3300-490: The latter part of the 16th century. The plays of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing , Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , Friedrich Schiller , and other Sturm und Drang playwrights inspired a growing faith in feeling and instinct as guides to moral behavior and were part of the German romanticism movement. Aleksandr Ostrovsky was Russia's first professional playwright). Author and playwright Agatha Christie wrote The Moustrap ,

3375-773: The lead alongside Robin Wright Penn and Mel Gibson . Gibson also acted as producer. Potter's screenplay of The White Hotel was adapted as a radio play and broadcast in September 2018. In 1993, Potter was given a half-hour slot in prime time by Channel 4 in their Opinions strand produced by Open Media . Potter's chosen topic was what he perceived to be a contamination of news media and its effect on declining standards in British television "particularly journalists who criticised his Channel 4 series Lipstick on Your Collar ", Kelvin MacKenzie "the sharp little oaf who edits

3450-410: The memoirs of Christabel Bielenberg , his next TV serial, Blackeyes (1989) was a major disappointment in his career. A drama about a fashion model , it was reviewed as self-indulgent by some critics, and accused of contributing to the misogyny Potter claimed he intended to expose. The critical backlash against Potter following Blackeyes led to Potter being labelled 'Dirty Den' (after Den Watts ,

3525-433: The oldest known playwrights being Śudraka , whose attributed plays can be dated to the second century BC. The Nāṭya Shāstra , a text on the performing arts from between 500BC-500AD, categorizes playwrights as being among the members of a theatre company, although playwrights were generally the highest in social status, with some being kings. In the 4th century BCE, Aristotle wrote his Poetics , in which he analyzed

3600-477: The personal and the social, and often used themes and images from popular culture . Potter is widely regarded as one of the most influential and innovative dramatists to have worked in British television. Born in Gloucestershire and graduating from Oxford University , Potter initially worked in journalism. After standing for parliament as a Labour candidate at the 1964 general election , his health

3675-566: The preproduction stage before work was suspended. More fortunate was Mesmer (1993), a biographical film of the 19th century pseudo-scientist Franz Anton Mesmer . Potter's film, Secret Friends (1991), from his novel, Ticket to Ride , starring Alan Bates , premiered in New York at the Museum of Modern Art as the gala closing of the Museum of Television & Radio 's week-long Potter retrospective. The last film Potter actively worked on

3750-533: The present and the other in the far future, both feature Albert Finney as the same principal character. Both series were released on DVD on 6 September 2010. Hide and Seek (1973) is a meta-fictional novel exploring the relationship between reader and author and contains a protagonist, Daniel Miller, who is convinced he is the plaything of an omniscient author . This concept forms the core of Potter's next two novels, and portions of Hide and Seek would reappear in several of his television plays, especially Follow

3825-435: The principle of action or praxis as the basis for tragedy. He then considered elements of drama: plot ( μύθος mythos ), character ( ἔθος ethos ), thought ( dianoia ), diction ( lexis ), music ( melodia ), and spectacle ( opsis ). Since the myths on which Greek tragedy were based were widely known, plot had to do with the arrangement and selection of existing material. Character

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3900-419: The rival BBC and Channel 4 working in collaboration, a suggestion which was accepted. The Bragg TV interview had revealed the "real" Dennis Potter as gentle and thoughtful and the immediate response was intense. The Guardian printed a full transcript the next day while Bragg reported: "Thousands of people reacted with phone calls and letters." Michael Grade , Channel 4’s chief executive said: "I've never known

3975-530: The same desperately repeated question I asked myself without any sort of an answer, or any ability to tell my mother or my father, when at the age of ten, between V.E. Day and V.J. Day , I was trapped by an adult's sexual appetite and abused out of innocence." His family returned to the Forest of Dean in 1952, having first left it in 1945, but Potter remained in London. Between 1953 and 1955, his national service

4050-491: The second Nigel Barton play for the new anthology series. Alice (also 1965), his next transmitted play, chronicled the relationship between Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by his nom de plume , Lewis Carroll, and his muse Alice Liddell . The play drew complaints from the descendants of Dodgson, and of Macmillan, the publisher, who objected to the way the relationship was depicted. George Baker played Dodgson. Potter's most highly regarded works from this period were

4125-559: The semi-autobiographical plays Stand Up, Nigel Barton! and Vote, Vote, Vote for Nigel Barton , which featured Keith Barron . The former recounts the experience of a miner's son attending Oxford University where he finds himself torn between two worlds, culminating in Barton's participation in a television documentary. This mirrored Potter's participation in Does Class Matter (1958), a television documentary made while Potter

4200-506: The stage after the television production was banned by the BBC, Potter set about writing a film version. It was directed by Richard Loncraine , who also directed Potter's Blade on the Feather at LWT, with Denholm Elliott reprising his role of Mr. Bates from the original television production, while Sting and Joan Plowright , replaced Michael Kitchen and Patricia Lawrence in the roles of Martin Taylor and Mrs Bates respectively. Although

4275-408: The stage. Vote, Vote, Vote for Nigel Barton , which featured material from its sister-play Stand Up, Nigel Barton , was premiered in 1966, while Only Make Believe (1973), which incorporated scenes from Angels Are So Few (1970), made the transition to the stage in 1974. Son of Man appeared in 1969 with Frank Finlay in the title role (Finlay would also play Casanova in Potter's 1971 serial) and

4350-485: The unities. Decorum fitted proper protocols for behavior and language on stage. In France, contained too many events and actions, thus, violating the 24-hour restriction of the unity of time. Neoclassicism never had as much traction in England, and Shakespeare 's plays are directly opposed to these models, while in Italy, improvised and bawdy commedia dell'arte and opera were more popular forms. One structural unit that

4425-522: Was Midnight Movie (1994), an adaptation of Rosalind Ashe's novel Moths . The film starred Louise Germaine and Brian Dennehy (who had appeared respectively in Lipstick on Your Collar and Gorky Park ) and was directed by Renny Rye . Unable to secure financing from the Arts Council , Potter invested £500,000 in the production; BBC Films provided the rest of the capital. The film was not given

4500-535: Was a rumination on the changing face of England in the prosperity following the end of the war years. It was followed by The Changing Forest: Life in the Forest of Dean Today (1962), which was based on the "Between Two Rivers" documentary. This book is a study of class and social mobility that demonstrates an early fascination with the effects of the mass media on British cultural life. He soon returned to television. Daily Herald journalist David Nathan persuaded Potter to collaborate with him on sketches for That Was

4575-423: Was affected by the onset of psoriatic arthropathy which necessitated Potter to change career and led to his becoming a television dramatist. He began with contributions to BBC1 's regular series The Wednesday Play from 1965, and he continued to work in the medium for the rest of his life, including writing screenplay adaptations for Hollywood studios. Potter died of pancreatic cancer in 1994. Dennis Potter

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4650-423: Was an Oxford undergraduate. The second play features the same character standing as a Labour candidate—his disillusionment with the compromises of electoral politics is based on Potter's own experience. Both plays received praise from critics but aroused considerable tension at the BBC for their potentially incendiary critique of party politics. In his James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture in 1993, Potter recalled how he

4725-495: Was asked by "several respected men at the corporation why I wanted to shit on the Queen." In 1978, Herbert Ross was shooting Nijinsky at Shepperton Studios and invited Potter to write the screenplay for his next project Unexpected Valleys . But after watching Pennies from Heaven on television one evening, Ross contacted Potter about the prospect of adapting that series for the cinema. The film version of Pennies from Heaven

4800-465: Was born in Berry Hill , Forest of Dean , Gloucestershire. His father, Walter Edward Potter (1906–1975), was a coal miner in this rural mining area between Gloucester and Wales; his mother was Margaret Constance (née Wale; 1910–2001). Potter had a sister named June. In 1946, Potter passed the eleven-plus and attended Bell's Grammar School at Coleford . Most of his secondary education, however,

4875-787: Was critical, referring in his 1998 diaries to a television programme "that took Potter at his own self-evaluation (always high), when there was a good deal of indifferent stuff which was skated over", and believed that Potter's health was a factor in his fame, saying "he visibly conformed to what the public thinks artists ought to be—poor or promiscuous, suffering or starved". BBC Four marked the tenth anniversary of Potter's death in December 2004 with documentaries about his life and work, accompanied by showings of Pennies from Heaven and The Singing Detective , as well as several of his single plays—many of which had not been shown since their initial broadcast. Potter's papers, including unproduced plays and unpublished fiction, are being catalogued and preserved at

4950-714: Was determined by choice and by action. Tragedy is mimesis —"the imitation of an action that is serious". He developed his notion of hamartia , or tragic flaw, an error in judgment by the main character or protagonist , which provides the basis for the "conflict-driven" play. There were also a number of secular performances staged in the Middle Ages, the earliest of which is The Play of the Greenwood by Adam de la Halle in 1276. It contains satirical scenes and folk material such as faeries and other supernatural occurrences. Farces also rose dramatically in popularity after

5025-552: Was diagnosed with breast cancer . Despite his own deteriorating condition and punishing work schedule, Potter continued to care for his wife until she died on 29 May 1994. Nine days later, on 7 June 1994, Potter died of pancreatic cancer in Ross-on-Wye , Herefordshire , England, at age 59. Playwright The earliest playwrights in Western literature with surviving works are the Ancient Greeks . William Shakespeare

5100-588: Was in London at St. Clement Danes Grammar School in Hammersmith (since demolished). It was in a street near Hammersmith Broadway that the ten-year-old Potter was sexually abused by his uncle, an experience he would later allude to many times in his writing. During his speech at the 1993 James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture , Potter referred to this event when explaining his decision to switch from newspaper journalism to screenwriting: "Different words had to be found, with different functions. But why? Why, why, why;

5175-737: Was in the Intelligence Corps of the British Army and he learned Russian at the Joint Services School for Linguists . Having won a State Scholarship to New College, Oxford , he studied philosophy, politics and economics . Potter began his career as a journalist with the Daily Herald . Potter's first non-fiction work, The Glittering Coffin , was published by the Gollancz Press in 1960. The book

5250-553: Was launched at MGM as an 'anti-musical' with Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters in the lead roles. According to Potter, the studio demanded continual rewrites of the script and made significant cuts to the film after initial test screenings. The film was released in 1981 to mixed critical reaction and was a box-office failure. Potter, however, was nominated for the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar that year. Having already adapted Brimstone and Treacle for

5325-579: Was most productive 'at night, with old Al Bowlly records playing in the background'". Potter had previously experimented with Bowlly's voice in Moonlight on the Highway (1969). Potter's characters are frequently "doubled up"; either by Doppelgänger , using the same actor to play two roles ( Kika Markham as the actress and the escort in Double Dare ; Norman Rossington as Lorenzo the gaoler and

5400-479: Was not a success at the box office. Potter's screenplay for Gorky Park (1983) led to his gaining an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America . Potter's career in the early 1980s was spent as a screenwriter for the cinema. He returned to the BBC for a co-production with 20th Century Fox , writing the scripts for a widely praised but seldom-seen miniseries of F. Scott Fitzgerald 's Tender Is

5475-644: Was restaged by Northern Stage in 2006. Brimstone and Treacle was adapted for the stage in 1977 after the BBC refused to screen the original television version. The play text for Blue Remembered Hills was first published in the collection Waiting for the Boat (with Joe's Ark and Blade on the Feather ) in 1984 and has since enjoyed several successful stage performances. Potter proposed to write an "intermedia" stage play for producers Geisler-Roberdeau based on William Hazlitt 's Liber Amoris, or The New Pygmalion , but he died before it could be commenced. Potter's work

5550-410: Was taken to a hospital, where his other major joints became inflamed and swollen, also, and his skin scalded off his body overnight. Potter was diagnosed with psoriatic arthropathy . On 14 February 1994, Potter experienced more than his usual daily pain. He was told he was suffering from incurable pancreas and liver cancer. Months before Potter was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, his wife, Margaret,

5625-499: Was to reach its apogee in France during the 17th century, dwelled upon the unities , of action, place, and time. This meant that the playwright had to construct the play so that its "virtual" time would not exceed 24 hours, that it would be restricted to a single setting, and that there would be no subplots. Other terms, such as verisimilitude and decorum, circumscribed the subject matter significantly. For example, verisimilitude limits of

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