Dennis Potter: A Biography [Hardcover]

Humphrey Carpenter (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0312221266 | ISBN-13: 978-0312221263 | Publication Date: May 1999 | Edition: First Edition

Dennis Potter was a prolific writer of genius, and his subversive television plays, such as Pennies from Heaven and The Singing Detective, scandalized and delighted his native Britain and the world. His death in 1994 deprived television of one of the most controversial figures it has ever known. The first serious writer of teleplays, Potter's work has canonized him in England and given him cult status throughout the world. Acclaimed writer Humphrey Carpenter, the author of candid biographies of Benjamin Britten, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Ezra Pound, now turns his talents to chronicling Potter's extraordinary life. Carpenter has interviewed everyone who came close to Potter, and was given exclusive access to Potter's archives, including never produced television and film scripts. Potter was a popular subject of gossip, both in his lifetime and after his death: This remarkable and official biography establishes the extraordinary truth behind the rumors, describes his strange, obsessive relationship with women, and paints a vivid portrait of the dramas and fights behind his screen triumphs.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

British screenwriter and teleplaywright Dennis Potter--best known to American audiences, perhaps, for Pennies from Heaven (and even then, for the Steve Martin adaptation, though the original British miniseries starring Bob Hoskins be less well known)--was a brave man. His private life was a torture of extreme psoriasis coupled with arthritis, which turned his hands into claws and his skin into snowflakes. His public life was a constant bombardment of censorial criticism as he pushed the boundaries of television with his challenging psychosexual dramas. Yet his genius was never questioned--and the viewing public were ultimately forced to readjust its couch position. The biography begins with Potter's childhood in the Forest of Dean, through a highly political Oxford career and his marriage to his childhood and lifelong sweetheart. After this comes the work, a mutated hybrid of Potter's own life and a dream world constructed from songs and sexual fantasies. Carpenter treads carefully; there are still many living friends and relatives, and some of the material is emotionally complex. He presents Potter through detailed accounts of his work and extensive interviews with friends, lovers, and colleagues, leaving readers to make up their own minds about this fiery, brilliant, demanding man. Potter's life has often been reduced to a tabloid blur of slurs; this biography offers readers a chance to see the man in all his guises. --Hannah Griffiths, Amazon.co.uk

From Publishers Weekly

Quirky, reclusive and prolific, the English writer Dennis Potter (19351994) reinvented serious TV with his frequently harrowing and much-lauded teleplays. Also a critic, novelist and cinema screenwriter, Potter was a man of spectacular contradictions, as Carpenter makes abundantly clear in this revealing and astute biography. A coalminers son who graduated from Oxford, Potter lived with his wife in an expensive Victorian mansion but openly attacked class prejudice and flaunted his working-class roots. A lifelong socialist and unsuccessful Labor Party parliamentary candidate who called for the breakup of the BBC monopoly, he turned away from his parents fundamentalism but periodically embraced a vaguely Christian, optimistic faith in a benevolent God. A family man and a father of three, he confessed compulsively to friends that he visited multitudes of prostitutes; his plays, full of relentless self-exposure, often allude to the sexual abuse he suffered at age 10 from a homosexual uncle. A manic-depressive, Potter overused tranquilizers, steroids and booze, partly to seek relief from crippling, disfiguring psoriatic arthropathy (psoriasis compounded by arthritis). Potter died at 59, from cancer, outliving his steadfast wife by just a few days. His last works left critics divided: was he a Swiftian genius or an overrated icon? In this candid, authorized biography, Carpenter (biographer of Tolkien, Auden, C.S. Lewis and Benjamin Britten) refrains from taking sides. American audiences will be most familiar with Potters BBC musical serials, Pennies from Heaven (1977) and The Singing Detective (1986)both aired here by PBSyet this convivial biography takes the full measure of a prodigious talent whose output ran the gamut from science fiction to political satire. Photos.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 672 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan; First Edition edition (May 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312221266
• ISBN-13: 978-0312221263
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 6.5 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,436,466 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dennis Potter Explained, December 7, 1999

By 

Dick Baldwin "christobe" (New York) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Dennis Potter: A Biography (Hardcover)

Dennis Potter wrote remarkable things about ordinary people. He may be best remembered for his musical trilogy covering the '30s ("Pennies From Heaven"), '40's ("The Singing Detective"), and the '50s ("Lipstick On Your Collar") employing the device of using popular music to express the hidden thoughts of his characters ... and not new, emotion-charged renditions of the music of those times mind you, but actual phonograph records of the original British artists. Can there be more pathos than bedraggled Arthur Parker in "Pennies From Heaven" lip-synching the bright romantic tune "Roll Along Prairie Moon" ... or more horror than Philip Marlow in "The Singing Detective" witnessing nurses and doctors performing a big production number around the novelty song "Dry Bones", convinced that his illness is making him lose his mind? This biography is a treasure for Potter enthusiasts, going a long distance explaining the root cause of his innovative genius. I personally was thrilled to see that there is a link between Potter and American author Alice Hoffman (hint: it's revealed toward the end of the book -- but no fair using the index!).

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Revealing Glimpse of the Genius of TV plays, October 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Dennis Potter: A Biography (Hardcover)

Without question, Dennis Potter changed the way we think about TV drama. Or, at least he did in the UK. In the US, his work has had very little exposure. The bio is fair, and explains a lot of Potter's obsessions (they all became material for his work, which is a deconstructionist's paradise). A little repetitive in places, Carpenter gives us a non-hagiographical overview of the guy behind the twisted visions.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A ponderousm pedestrian tome, not worthy of Carpenter, June 11, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dennis Potter: A Biography (Hardcover)

Ken Trodd, like Potter a "scholarship boy" at Oxford, went on to produce Potter's finest works in a relationship bubbling with catalytic ferment and often boiling or exploding. As Trodd observes (in a probably unpublished review)he personally appears in this biography more often than DP's wife,mother,or agent, but his relevant insights, like his essential role in DPs creativity, are not apparent. Carpenter was not given to hack P.R jobs! Whyever did he agree to an "authorized" (i.e. supervised and censored) biography?