He questions Potter's reputation as our preeminent television dramatist:
Potter was certainly very prolific, but as a dramatist he was thematically straitened and tirelessly self-plagiaristic. Chapel (and the nonconformist, anti-Marxist socialism that derived from it), chippiness, the Forest of Dean, debilitating illness, the problem of prayer, virgins or whores: these are perpetually recurrent motifs. And surely one serial in which characters mime to pop songs would have been enough.but praises the book strongly:
Every page of this book is constellated with sentences and phrases of, variously, humour, cleverness, warmth, indignation and savagery. It is one of the very finest collections of ‘occasional’ (but far from ephemeral) writing I have read.
Dennis Potter didn't have a chip. He just looked at life and made up his own mind.
ReplyDeleteAwkwardly.
When somebody taps you on the shoulder, make your own choice.