Movies: Dennis Potter

Candidate Nigel Barton goes from idealism to cynicism as he becomes disillusioned and suspicious of hollow campaign promises....

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 ...

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. Amber's mother was model-actress Mandy Mason, who died mysteriously after her appe...

Jack Black is a disturbed actor who believes himself to be trapped in a television play, followed around by an invisible camera....

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. The manager's son fantas...

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...

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. As they discuss the play, Martin discovers that a businessman...

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. At the time of the 1956 Suez Crisis and the Russian invasion of Hungary, Private Bob Hawk reports to t...

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....

Poor Willy’s mind has been warped by too many Westerns. He sees gunfighters on every corner, even though he’s in 1960s Swansea. Some think Billy’s simple. His Auntie just thinks he’s creative. But he’s on a dark path as his vivid imaginings grow wild...

The religious beliefs of pet shop owner Joe (Freddie Jones) are shaken by the terminal illness of his daughter Lucy (Angharad Rees). For Potter, this play "makes more than a wry nod at possibilities which can comprehend pain, or disgust, or the impla...

A reclusive, elderly author is visited by a young admirer … but both men are more than they claim to be....

Western journalists visit Moscow to interview Adrian Harris, a former controller in British intelligence who was also a double agent for the USSR. Harris believes in both Communism and Englishness, believing himself to have betrayed his class, but no...

A no-nonsense businessman, Mr. Wilkie, is interviewed for a position with a top-of-the-line hotel chain corporation. During the interview, Wilkie attempts to complete a shaggy-dog story. His frustrations lead to a total breakdown. He suddenly snaps a...

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"). Returning to the Berry Hill roo...

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. As Hudson creates, scenes from his play are dramatized and in...

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. Unfortunately, it triggers aggressive behavior in Billy which he direct...

Facing retirement, elderly journalist Clarence Hubbard reflects on the pointlessness of a life wasted writing banal tabloid human interest, animal, and crime stories. Rather than go quietly to tend roses in a garden, Hubbard begins a series of violen...