Capital Celluloid 2012 - Day 329: Sat Nov 24

The Singing Detective (Amiel, 1986): ICA London, 10.45am

A rare one-day screening of all six episodes of Dennis Potter’s widely acclaimed 1986 TV series The Singing Detective. This is the first time the whole series will be shown in its entirety in the UK on the big screen. 

Psychoanalyst Don Campbell leads the following day's discussion panel on the nature of art and psyche, creativity and fantasy. The panel includes Kenith Trodd - the series' producer and champion of ambitious literary drama, Dr. David Bell - psychoanalyst and author of a seminal critique of the series, and actor Patrick Malahide (Hunted, The Paradise) and Dame Janet Suzman.

This artistically and psychologically radical TV drama sees Potter engaging directly with our inner lives, the fantasies, terrors and longings that drive and obstruct us, and the difficulty of distinguishing past from present, fantasy from reality, and other from self. We meet Potter’s protagonist Philip Marlow, a detective fiction writer, at the moment of a profound crisis of his life. His suspicious detective instinct has been finally turned in upon his own fractured world of haunting memories and destructive delusions. Michael Gambon gives one of the great performances of his career as the tormented, conflicted Marlow, bringing Potter’s screenplay to painfully turbulent life.

South African born Janet Suzman has enjoyed a rich career in film, television and theatre as both a performer and director. She has twice won the Evening Standard Best Actress Award and also had Academy Award and Golden Globe Nominations. Janet was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to drama in 2011.

Further details at www.beyondthecouch.org.uk

Here is an extract.

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