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Joanne Whalley
Michael Gambon
Patrick Malahide
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Genre
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Drama
Musical
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Media
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DVD Box Set
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Language | English | ||
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Reviewer
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Gareth
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Description
The story of The Singing Detective unfolds in three time periods: a 1980s hospital ward, The Forest of Dean (and later London) in the 1930s and a film-noir fantasy London of the 1940s. The link between these 'worlds' and the protagonist of the story is Philip Marlow, the writer recovering from psoriasis in the hospital. The story follows his recovery from his skin condition and parallel assimilation of a childhood trauma he suffered in the 1930s. The Forest of Dean parts of the story are Marlow's childhood memories. The young Philip, it is revealed, witnessed his mother's adultery with Raymond Binney and took revenge upon his backward son Mark by implicating him for a schoolroom crime he committed. The film-noir fantasy is from a novel he wrote entitled The Singing Detective in which the character, Mark Binney, hires the help of the detective, Philip Marlow, to help him escape being framed for a murder.
Review
This ranks as 20th on the BFI's list of 100 Greatest British Television Programmes and, to me, is Dennis Potter's crown achievement.
The story is fabulously labyrinthine blending flasbacks; music-hall routines; hallucinations and fantasy. Michael Gambon gives the performance of his career as crime writer, Philip Marlow who is in hospital recovering from psoriasis. Whilst in the hospital he undergoes therapy to try and determine the psychological causes of the horrible affliction.
This is as deep as television can possibly get as Marlow is forced to come to terms with past torment and repressed memories as they threaten to erupt into his present and possibly destroy any chance of him ever having a future.
Throughout this epic mini-series Marlow's personality is peeled away as we see, through various invasive flashbacks, his childhood is laid bare. Inter-cut throughout this are various music-hall numbers -which were introduced thematically in Pennies From Heaven- but are actually given context throughout one of Marlow's hallucinations (he has an alter-ego, a private eye hired to clear another character's name).
It's so difficult to do The Singing Detective justice in a small review; it has to be seen to be believed. It's not an easy series to get into as it switches between past; present and fantasy (seemingly) at the drop of a hat, but it does reward the persistent. This is British drama at it's best and certainly deserves to be in the BFI's top one hundred!
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