POTTER ON TV
Sunday 9 January 2005 10.25pm-11pm; 2.15am-2.50am
The acuteness of Dennis Potter's understanding of the medium of television remains virtually unsurpassed. In the 10 years since his death, TV has changed immensely - technologically and editorially. This film looks at how Potter's analysis still contributes to our understanding of it.
He was TV critic for four publications, most famously the Sunday Times (1976-78) under the editorship of Harold Evans, in a career that began in the early 1960s at the Daily Herald (the Labour paper that would ironically become the Sun). In the early 1970s he reviewed TV for the New Statesman.
He saw television as a medium with incomparable potential to enhance and cultivate the nation's cultural experience and understanding. This is why he chose to write for it, both as playwright and critic. With his own appearances, his writing and the programmes he wrote about, Arena presents a new portrait of Potter on TV.
