Dennis Potter's Summation

Dennis Potter, best known to most as the writer of The Singing Detective and Pennies From Heaven, learned of his impending death from cancer a few months ahead, and in the short time left managed to complete his final series of television plays, Karaoke and Cold Lazarus. What he says in this remarkable interview from that time will certainly resonate with anyone with the slightest interest in writing, television, and of course Life and Death. Witty, courageous, and in no way heavy, it is extraordinarily intelligent, wise and prescient. Among his observations:

• How the vivid awareness of his own mortality sharpens his sense of beauty
• How religion is the wound and not the bandage
• How the English character was in the mid-20th century
• How it's easier to pull a gun than a cigarette from ones pocket in America
• How his relation with his father (long deceased) continues to improve. (cf. Atonement)
• Why Rupert Murdoch is the one man he would shoot, given the chance.
• Why people in his plays suddenly burst into lip-synched song (How life is like karaoke)

.and much more...

It's in 6 ten minute sections, and it's well worth your giving your attention to the last hour of this brilliant writer's public discourse.