Dennis Potter’s last interview, Part 1

This week each day at noon EDT (U.S.), we’ll be featuring a segment from the last interview given by the late great writer Dennis Potter. His TV credits are remarkable including one of the best limited run series of all time “The Singing Detective”. Other credits include numerous televised plays such as Stand Up, Nigel Barton! and Son of Man, television serials such as “Casanova” and “Pennies from Heaven”, and movies like Gorky Park and Dreamchild.

Potter’s original stories were often a mixture of fantasy and reality, and he enjoyed defying writing conventions — non-linear plots, characters breaking the fourth wall, characters suddenly bursting into musical numbers, flashbacks. I’m sure any of you who are familiar Potter’s work know he was a brilliant and creative writer.

From his Wikipedia page, here is background on the last interview Potter gave before his death:

On 14 February 1994, Potter learned that he had terminal cancer of the pancreas and liver.[6] It was thought that this was a side effect of the medication he was taking to control his psoriasis. With typical sardonic humour, he named his cancer “Rupert”, after Rupert Murdoch, who represented so much of what he found despicable about British mass media.[10] On 15 March 1994, three months before his death, Potter gave a strikingly memorable interview to Channel 4 (he had broken most of his ties with the BBC as a result of his disenchantment with Directors-General Michael Checkland and especially John Birt, whom he had famously referred to as a “croak-voiced Dalek”)[11], in which he described his work and his determination to continue writing until the end. As he sipped on a morphine cocktail, he told a visibly moved Melvyn Bragg that he had two works he intended to finish (Cold Lazarus and Karaoke) before his impending death: “My only regret is if I die four pages too soon”. The interview was shown on 5 April 1994.

Potter died on June 4, 1994. Here is Part 1 of the interview:

Tomorrow Part 2.

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