Dennis Potter Trailers
Drama Out of a Crisis: A Celebration of Play for Today TrailerAn Interview with Dennis Potter TrailerVisions of Heaven and Hell Trailer
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 TV serials Pennies from Heaven (1978), The Singing Detective (1986), and the television plays Blue Remembered Hills (1979) and Brimstone and Treacle (1976). His television dramas mixed fantasy and reality, 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 was affected by the onset of psoriatic arthropathy which necessitated Potter changing careers and led to him becoming a television dramatist. His new career began with contributions to the BBC's Wednesday Play anthology series in 1965, and he continued to work in the medium for the rest of his life. He also wrote screenplay adaptations for the Hollywood studios. He died of pancreatic cancer in 1994.
Most Popular Dennis Potter Trailers
Total trailers found: 42
26 December 1994
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.
13 June 1971
Facing retirement, elderly journalist Clarence Hubbard reflects on the pointlessness of a life wasted writing banal tabloid human interest, animal, and crime stories.
28 October 1994
A version of Dennis Potter's play for television, remade shortly before his death as the original 1960s version had been wiped.
21 June 1991
During a train ride, an anxiety attack leads middle-aged illustrator John into an identity crisis. As his marital problems merge and blur into his fantasy life with prostitutes and call girls, a long-dormant secret friend of his childhood surfaces in his delusions.
11 December 1981
During the Great Depression, a sheet music salesman seeks to escape his dreary life through popular music and a love affair with an innocent schoolteacher.
13 May 1968
George, an ineffectual and inoffensive clerk, and his prim wife Gladys reserve their greatest efforts for preserving their respectibility.
04 October 1985
80-year-old Alice Hargreaves is about to visit Columbia University to attend a reception in honour of author Lewis Carroll.
20 June 1974
Glen, a complete stranger, appears at the door of Elizabeth Carter, a middle-aged woman, and claims to be the illegitimate son she gave away at birth.
24 October 2003
Tormented and bedridden by a debilitating disease, a mystery writer relives his detective stories through his imagination and hallucinations.
12 February 1973
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.
19 November 1994
Dennis Potter a television dramatist talks about his work, politics and his fears for both.
12 April 1969
Writing for ITV's SATURDAY NIGHT THEATRE series, Dennis Potter introduced the notion that popular music expresses the yearning of the human spirit for a better world.
02 November 1980
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.
15 December 1983
Police Inspector Renko tries to solve the case of three bodies found in Moscow's Gorky Park but finds his attempts to solve the crime impeded by his superiors.
11 April 1966
Drama set in a men's hospital ward, written by Dennis Potter. Characters include a cunning bronchitic Londoner, a strapped-up Pole and a dying man who just wants a cup of tea.
25 August 1994
A biography of the eighteenth century Viennese physician, Franz Anton Mesmer, who used unorthodox healing practices based on his theory of "animal magnetism.
26 October 1980
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.
20 November 1968
A young local girl is murdered by a mentally disturbed youth, but the villagers blame a stranger, an Italian traveling showman and his bear, rather than see the rot in their own camp.
10 November 1968
A no-nonsense businessman, Mr. Wilkie, is interviewed for a position with a top-of-the-line hotel chain corporation.
23 May 1970
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.
01 October 1982
A mysterious stranger inserts himself into a troubled family's life, blurring the lines between good and evil as he cares for their disabled daughter.
02 November 1966
Poor Willy’s mind has been warped by too many Westerns. He sees gunfighters on every corner, even though he’s in 1960s Swansea.
30 January 1979
On an idyllic summer afternoon in the summer of 1943, a group of children play in the West Country hills, fields and forests.
15 May 1988
Years after a desperate teenage Linda gives up her baby for adoption, she finds herself face-to-face with Martin, a young man claiming to be her long-lost son.
06 April 1976
A mysterious stranger inserts himself into a troubled family's life, blurring the lines between good and evil as he cares for their disabled daughter.
05 November 1970
This neat, intense drama, labelled “a fable for television”, stars Tom Bell as the scruffy, childlike Michael Biddle, who is invited in from the cold of a suburban street by sexually frustrated, bored housewife Cynthia, played by Christine Hargreaves.
16 April 1969
Dennis Potter's controversial reading of the life of Christ, with Jesus portrayed as a hearty, fiery, well-meaning carpenter who believes that people should try to love their enemies rather than fight all the time, but who is racked by self doubt as to whether or not he is the popularly anticipated Messiah.
31 January 1994
Dennis Potter, Esther Dyson, William Gibson and other techno-thinkers appeared in this award-winning three-part documentary series which examined social changes brought about by new information technologies, along with other issues and dilemmas facing society in the 21st Century.
12 October 2020
Marking Play for Today’s 50th anniversary, Drama Out of a Crisis is a compelling exploration of the series, its origins, achievements, controversies and legacies.
19 October 1980
A reclusive author is visited by a young admirer - but both men are more than they claim to be.
13 October 1965
In this look at Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898), aka Lewis Carroll, Dennis Potter mixed biographical drama with a psychological profile to explore the roots of Dodgson's creativity.
04 July 1972
Jack Black is a disturbed commercial actor who believes himself to be trapped in a television play, followed around by an invisible camera.
14 February 1974
The religious beliefs of pet shop owner Joe (Freddie Jones) are shaken by the terminal illness of his daughter Lucy (Angharad Rees).
01 January 2000
A mysterious stranger inserts himself into a troubled family's life, blurring the lines between good and evil as he cares for their disabled daughter.
08 December 1965
Semi-autobiographical TV play by Dennis Potter, from the BBC's 'Wednesday Play' series. It deals with the experiences of Nigel Barton, a young man from a poor mining community who wins a scholarship to Oxford University.
03 June 1960
After a brief tutelage with innovative BBC documentary producer Denis Mitchell, Dennis Potter teamed with producer Anthony de Lotbiniere to film a documentary (later described by David Niven as "absolutely wonderful").
14 October 1971
Western journalists visit Moscow to interview Adrian Harris, a former controller in British intelligence who was also a double agent for the USSR.
15 December 1965
Candidate Nigel Barton goes from idealism to cynicism as he becomes disillusioned and suspicious of hollow campaign promises.
21 April 1976
Based on the 1907 autobiography "Father and Son" by Christian fundamentalist and naturalist Edmund Gosse, but Dennis Potter adapted only one section of the book, adding much material of his own invention.
06 April 1976
Martin Ellis (Alan Dobie) is a blocked screenwriter who invites Helen, an actress (Kika Markham), to a hotel in central London to discuss an idea for a play he is writing with her in mind.
22 February 1987
A British businessman whose family company has been taken over by a multinational corporation clashes with his new American manager while they both vacation with their families at an Italian villa at their employer's expense.
14 February 1991
Jack Black is a disturbed commercial actor who believes himself to be trapped in a television play, followed around by an invisible camera.
