The Art of Invective
Selected Non-Fiction 1953-1994
1st Edition
Published on 12. May 2015
432 pages
978-1-78319-702-6 (ISBN)
Description
Dennis Potter (1935-94) was Britain's leading television dramatist for almost thirty years and remains an inspiration to today's programme makers as a result of such ground-breaking work as Pennies from Heaven, Blue Remembered Hills and The Singing Detective. But he also engaged with his audience through reviews, journalism, interviews, broadcasts and speeches. The Art of Invective, the first collection of its kind, brings together some of his finest non-fiction work.
Published to mark 80 years since Potter's birth, this book includes his merciless television columns, penetrating literary criticism and angry writings on class and politics, as well as his sketches for Sixties satire shows including That Was the Week That Was. From Frost-Nixon to Coronation Street, David Hare to Doctor Who, Orwell to Emu, this collection shows Potter's distinctive voice at its entertaining, thought-provoking and uncompromising best.
Published to mark 80 years since Potter's birth, this book includes his merciless television columns, penetrating literary criticism and angry writings on class and politics, as well as his sketches for Sixties satire shows including That Was the Week That Was. From Frost-Nixon to Coronation Street, David Hare to Doctor Who, Orwell to Emu, this collection shows Potter's distinctive voice at its entertaining, thought-provoking and uncompromising best.
Reviews / Votes
If he'd worked in the theatre he'd have been the Shaw of our day. He would have been that substantial. It remains a scandal that because you worked in television, you are somehow downgraded. You don't belong in that high category of high art. Well, Dennis does if anybody does. * Trevor Griffiths * As the British Film Institute celebrates the life and work of 'the writer who redefined TV drama', Oberon Books, with perfect timing, offers this collection of Potter's critical abuse in journalism and interviews at its most constructively eloquent. The Art of Invective essentially complements Humphrey Carpenter's magisterial biography and all those DVDs of the plays that can still galvanise what Potter called 'the palace of varieties in the corner of the room'. He believed that television, with its vast, all-inclusive audience, was a potentially powerful means of promulgating true democracy... stingingly vitriolic invective... merciless pungency. * The Spectator *More details
Edition
1. Auflage
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN-13
978-1-78319-702-6 (9781783197026)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
05/2015
Oberon Books Ltd
€47.22
Shipment within 3-4 weeks
Persons
Dennis Potter (17 May 1935 - 7 June 1994) was an English television dramatist, screenwriter and journalist. Beginning with contributions to BBC television's The Wednesday Play anthology series from 1965, he peaked with The Singing Detective (1986), a BBC TV serial for which he is best remembered. This work and many of his other widely acclaimed television dramas mixed fantasy and reality, the personal and the social and often used themes and images from popular culture. Potter was an influence on such creators as Steven Bochco, Alan Ball, Andrew Davies, Charlie Kaufman, Peter Bowker, Margaret Edson and Alain Resnais. His work has been the subject of many critical essays, books, websites and documentaries. BBC Four marked the tenth anniversary of Potter's death in December 2004 with a major series of documentaries about his life and work, accompanied by showings of Pennies from Heaven and The Singing Detective, as well as several of his plays. His influence has also extended into popular music, and he has been cited by bands such as Manic Street Preachers, Franz Ferdinand and Elbow.
Content
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- A Note on the Text
- Chronology
- Part One The Confidence Course
- Introduction
- Changes at the top: Isis, 22 May 1957
- Stubbornyuddedness: Dean Forest Guardian, 4 October 1957
- Base ingratitude?: New Statesman, 3 May 1958
- Just gimmicks: Isis, 4 June 1958
- I am proud of my home and family.no obsession: Dean Forest Guardian, 5 September 1958
- Potter: 1: Isis, 21 January 1959
- It's time to get out of the rut: Daily Mirror, 3 October 1959
- Paradise Gained: Dennis Potter on Television: Isis, 27 January 1960
- The Establishment: Ten O'Clock, BBC Home Service, 6 October 1961
- Flyover in my eyes: Daily Herald, 18 November 1961
- Pre-packed childhood: Sunday Times, 20 May 1962
- At last - free speech is creeping into TV: Daily Herald, 29 September 1962
- Greed in the corn: Daily Herald, 6 October 1962
- TV can make religion dramatic: Daily Herald, 17 November 1962
- This TV newcomer smiles as she bites: Daily Herald, 26 November 1962
- Secret of Coronation Street: Daily Herald, 12 January 1963
- Stop nagging at us!: Daily Herald, 9 February 1963
- Entitled to Know: Nationalization Pamphlet: That Was The Week That Was, BBC-TV, 2 March 1963
- Culture leaps out of its cage: Daily Herald, 9 March 1963
- This was a glorious wallop: Daily Herald, 30 March 1963
- Don't be so T-Victorian: Daily Herald, 3 August 1963
- And everyone seemed slightly ashamed: Daily Herald, 26 August 1963
- The sweet screams of success: Daily Herald, 14 October 1963
- I won't say no to Doctor Who: Daily Herald, 30 November 1963
- Treasures of the past: Daily Herald, 14 December 1963
- Steptoe pushes out the television junk: Daily Herald, 18 January 1964
- Writers are kings without riches: Daily Herald, 25 January 1964
- Did I hear the poodle growl?: Daily Herald, 15 February 1964 58
- Z Cars comes to the end of the alley: Daily Herald, 14 March 1964
- Out goes pomposity: Daily Herald, 22 April 1964
- Sport is too good to leave with the experts: Daily Herald, 25 July 1964
- School Sketch: Not So Much a Programme More a Way of Life, 9 January 1965
- Letter to the Stage: Stage, 29 July 1965
- Drama with no safety curtain: New Society, 30 December 1965
- The art of true invective: New Society, 27 January 1966
- A Boswell in the bicarbonate: New Society, 26 May 1966
- Aberfan: New Society, 27 October 1966
- Young Ibsen: towards the southbound steamer: Times, 9 December 1967
- George Orwell: New Society, 1 February 1968
- I really must tell you I'm so very happy: Sun, 13 May 1968
- Dennis Potter exposed: Sun, 20 May 1968
- Armchair revolution: New Society, 20 June 1968
- The face at the window: Times, 3 August 1968
- Back - to weave dreams out of my own wallpaper: Sun, 21 October 1968
- Lightning over a dark field: Times, 7 December 1968 105
- Part Two Telling Stories
- Introduction
- Acid drops: Plays and Players, November 1971
- The sweetest music this side of heaven: Times, 2 December 1971
- Tsar's army: New Statesman, 13 October 1972
- Alf takes over: New Statesman, 20 October 1972
- Switch on, switch over, switch off: Times, 15 March 1973
- Kafka and Brasso: Times, 14 May 1973
- The Hart Interview: BBC1, 14 August 1973
- Receding dreams: New Statesman, 15 March 1974
- Boy in a landscape: New Statesman, 29 March 1974
- Mimic men: New Statesman, 13 September 1974
- Second time round: New Statesman, 27 September 1974
- In a rut: New Statesman, 22 November 1974
- Violence out of a box: New Statesman, 29 November 1974
- Switch back: New Statesman, 7 March 1975
- Telling stories: New Society, 15 May 1975 164
- Marching to Zion: New Society, 19 June 1975 168
- One man's week: Sunday Times, 18 April 1976
- A note from Mr Milne: New Statesman, 23 April 1976
- Poisonous gas: New Statesman, 28 May 1976
- Puppets on a string: Sunday Times, 5 December 1976
- And with no language but a cry: BBC Radio 3, 27 December 1976
- Glop: New Statesman, 22 April 1977
- A Frosty night: Sunday Times, 8 May 1977
- Whistling in the dark: Sunday Times, 12 June 1977 195
- The spectre at the harvest feast: Sunday Times, 19 June 1977
- Various kinds of scavenger: Sunday Times, 24 July 1977
- Realism and non-naturalism: Edinburgh International Television Festival, 1 September 1977 203
- Part Three Ticket to Ride
- Introduction
- Trampling the mud from wall to wall: Sunday Times, 6 November 1977
- Tonight: BBC1, 7 November 1977
- I accuse the inquisitors: Sunday Times, 4 December 1977
- An innocent abroad: Sunday Times Magazine, 8 January 1978
- Let the cry of rage be heard: Sunday Times, 29 January 1978
- A play astonishing in its excellence: Sunday Times, 5 February 1978 255
- The other side of the dark: All in the Waiting, BBC Radio 4, 23 February 1978
- Start the Week with Richard Baker: BBC Radio 4, 13 March 1978
- Bank holiday blues: Sunday Times, 3 September 1978 266
- The lascivious leer of the senses: Sunday Times, 19 November 1978
- Goodbye to all that: Sunday Times, 26 November 1978 272
- Theatre Call: BBC World Service, 9 February 1979
- Anteroom to purgatory: Tatler, November 1979
- Cheryl Campbell - An appreciation by Dennis Potter: Over 21, March 1980 283
- Potter rights: Broadcast, 6 October 1980 285
- Writers' reading in 1981: Guardian, 10 December 1981
- Pruning dead wood in Gorky Park: Sunday Times Magazine, 18 December 1983
- Introduction: Tender is the Night, 1987
- Writers' attitudes to wealth creation: Independent, 17 June 1987
- The John Dunn Show: BBC Radio 2, 13 December 1989
- Sincerely theirs: letters as literature: New York Times, 27 May 1990
- Pride: 'Breathe on 'um Berry!', 1992
- Downloading: January 1992
- Smoke screen: Guardian, 28 March 1994
- Introduction to Karaoke and Cold Lazarus: 28 April 1994
- The Artist: The Dane, July 1953
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
