Inspirational Quotes by Dennis Potter (English Dramatist)

Dennis Potter (1935–94,) fully Dennis Christopher George Potter, was an English dramatist. The unchallenged master of serious television play, he is renowned for using songs, themes, and images from popular culture to contrast everyday life’s raw realities with hope and self-delusion.

Born in Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, Potter was educated at Oxford, working as a journalist and television critic before penning plays. Although he wrote for the stage (Sufficient Carbohydrate, 1984,) he was principally a television dramatist. Following Vote, Vote, Vote for Nigel Barton (1965,) he wrote over 25 television plays and series.

Potter’s Son of Man (1969) was the first television screenplay that portrayed Christ as a man who grappled with his misgivings as with those opposed to his teaching. Potter’s other contentious plays include Brimstone and Treacle (1978,) The Singing Detective (1986,) and Blackeyes (1989.)

Potter was also technically innovative: Pennies from Heaven (1978) required the actors to mime to popular songs of the 1920s and 30s that intercut the action. Blue Remembered Hills (1979,) a memory play, needed adult actors to portray children.

Potter’s later television dramas include Lipstick on Your Collar (1993.) His novel Ticket to Ride (1986) was adapted to the film Secret Friends (1992.) He completed two final dramas just before his death, Karaoke and Cold Lazarus, broadcast in 1996.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Dennis Potter