The Singing Detective
| The Singing Detective | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Genre |
Film Noir Musical |
| Created by | Dennis Potter |
| Written by | Dennis Potter |
| Directed by | Jon Amiel |
| Starring |
Michael Gambon Jim Carter Lyndon Davies Patrick Malahide Bill Paterson Alison Steadman Janet Suzman Joanne Whalley Imelda Staunton |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of series | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 6 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Rick McCallum |
| Producer(s) |
Kenith Trodd John Harris |
| Running time | 6h42m57s |
| Release | |
| Original network | BBC1 |
| Original release | 16 November – 21 December 1986 |
| Chronology | |
| Related shows |
Pennies From Heaven (1978) Lipstick on Your Collar (1993) |
The Singing Detective is a BBC television serial drama, written by Dennis Potter, which stars Michael Gambon and was directed by Jon Amiel. The six episodes were "Skin", "Heat", "Lovely Days", "Clues", "Pitter Patter" and "Who Done It".
The serial was broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC1 in 1986 on Sunday nights from 16 November to 21 December with later PBS and cable television showings in the United States. It won a Peabody Award in 1989. It ranks 20th on the British Film Institute's list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes, as voted by industry professionals in 2000. It was included in the 1992 Dennis Potter retrospective at the Museum of Television & Radio and became a permanent addition to the Museum's collections in New York and Los Angeles. There was co-production funding from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. It was released on DVD in the US on 15 April 2003 and in the UK on 8 March 2004.
Mystery writer Philip E. Marlow is suffering writer's block and is hospitalised because his psoriatic arthropathy, a chronic skin and joint disease, is at an acute stage forming lesions and sores over his entire body, and partially cripples his hands and feet. Dennis Potter suffered from this disease himself, and he wrote with a pen tied to his fist in much the same fashion Marlow does in the last episode. Although severe, Marlow's condition was intentionally understated compared to Potter's whose skin would sometimes crack and bleed.
As a result of constant pain, a fever caused by the condition, and his refusal to take medication, Marlow falls into a fantasy world involving his Chandleresque novel, The Singing Detective, an escapist adventure about a detective (also named "Philip Marlow") who sings at a dance hall and takes the jobs "the guys who don't sing" won't take. Writers will recognize that, like Potter, Marlow is "plot-dreaming," trying out various solutions to a working plot in his head, deciding as he goes what plot element works best with what character or situation, interspersed with bits of ideas that occur to him off the wall, and discarding (with some afterthoughts) parts of his story that no longer work when other changes have been made.
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