Dennis Potter

Dennis Potter

Dennis Christopher George Potter (17 May 1935 – 7 June 1994) was an English television dramatist, screenwriter and journalist. He is best known for his BBC TV serials Pennies from Heaven (1978), The Singing Detective (1986), and the television plays Blue Remembered Hills (1979) and Brimstone and Treacle (1976). His television dramas mixed fantasy and reality, the personal and the social, and often used themes and images from popular culture. Potter is widely regarded as one of the most influential and innovative dramatists to have worked in British television. Born in Gloucestershire and graduating from Oxford University, Potter initially worked in journalism. After standing for parliament as a Labour candidate at the 1964 general election, his health was affected by the onset of psoriatic arthropathy which necessitated Potter changing careers and led to him becoming a television dramatist. His new career began with contributions to the BBC's Wednesday Play anthology series in 1965, and he continued to work in the medium for the rest of his life. He also wrote screenplay adaptations for the Hollywood studios. He died of pancreatic cancer in 1994.

  • Title: Dennis Potter
  • Popularity: 1.721
  • Known For: Writing
  • Birthday:
  • Place of Birth:
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Dennis Potter Movies

  • 1994
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    An Interview with Dennis Potter

    An Interview with Dennis Potter

    1 1994 HD

    Dennis Potter a television dramatist talks about his work, politics and his fears for both.

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  • 1994
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    Visions of Heaven and Hell

    Visions of Heaven and Hell

    1 1994 HD

    Dennis Potter, Esther Dyson, William Gibson and other techno-thinkers appeared in this award-winning three-part documentary series which examined...

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  • 1983
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    Gorky Park

    Gorky Park

    6.3 1983 HD

    Police Inspector Renko tries to solve the case of three bodies found in Moscow's Gorky Park but finds his attempts to solve the crime impeded by his...

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  • 1985
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    Dreamchild

    Dreamchild

    6.7 1985 HD

    Eighty-year-old Alice Hargreaves is about to visit Columbia University to attend a reception in honor of author Lewis Carroll. As a child, Alice had...

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  • 1988
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    Track 29

    Track 29

    5.5 1988 HD

    Years after a desperate teenage Linda gives up her baby for adoption, she finds herself face-to-face with Martin, a young man claiming to be her...

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  • 1981
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    Pennies from Heaven

    Pennies from Heaven

    6 1981 HD

    During the Great Depression, a sheet music salesman seeks to escape his dreary life through popular music and a love affair with an innocent school...

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  • 1982
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    Brimstone & Treacle

    Brimstone & Treacle

    6 1982 HD

    A strange young man has a sinister effect on the family of a middle-aged writer.

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  • 1980
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    Rain on the Roof

    Rain on the Roof

    5.8 1980 HD

    Another of Dennis Potter's "visitation dramas": Adultery by John disturbs Janet, so she flirts with the simple, mistreated Billy during the middle of...

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  • 1970
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    Lay Down Your Arms

    Lay Down Your Arms

    6 1970 HD

    Dennis Potter used his own background as a Russian language clerk in the War Office when writing this play for ITV's SATURDAY NIGHT THEATRE series....

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  • 1980
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    Blade on the Feather

    Blade on the Feather

    5.9 1980 HD

    A reclusive, elderly author is visited by a young admirer … but both men are more than they claim to be.

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  • 1980
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    Cream in My Coffee

    Cream in My Coffee

    6 1980 HD

    Past and present intertwine: An elderly couple returns to the hotel where they became close when they were young and flashbacks to the earlier visit...

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  • 1969
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    Moonlight on the Highway

    Moonlight on the Highway

    2 1969 HD

    Writing for ITV's SATURDAY NIGHT THEATRE series, Dennis Potter introduced the notion that popular music expresses the yearning of the human spirit...

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  • 1974
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    Schmoedipus

    Schmoedipus

    1 1974 HD

    Glen, a complete stranger, appears at the door of Elizabeth Carter, a middle-aged woman, and claims to be the illegitimate son she gave away at birth.

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  • 1987
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    Brimstone and Treacle

    Brimstone and Treacle

    6 1987 HD

    The Bates care for their severely disabled daughter Pattie. Martin arrives at their door claiming to be her college friend. He charms them into...

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  • 1991
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    Secret Friends

    Secret Friends

    3.9 1991 HD

    During a train ride, an anxiety attack leads middle-aged illustrator John into an identity crisis. As his marital problems merge and blur into his...

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  • 1976
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    Where Adam Stood

    Where Adam Stood

    6.2 1976 HD

    "Where Adam Stood" is "based on" the 1907 autobiography, "Father and Son", by Christian fundamentalist and naturalist Edmund Gosse, but Dennis Potter...

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  • 1994
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    Midnight Movie

    Midnight Movie

    1 1994 HD

    American producer James Boyce and his airhead wife Amber rent an English country mansion where the British horror flick "Smoke Rings" was filmed...

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  • 1971
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    Paper Roses

    Paper Roses

    1 1971 HD

    Facing retirement, elderly journalist Clarence Hubbard reflects on the pointlessness of a life wasted writing banal tabloid human interest, animal,...

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  • 1969
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    Son of Man

    Son of Man

    1 1969 HD

    Dennis Potter's controversial reading of the life of Christ, with Jesus portrayed as a hearty, fiery, well-meaning carpenter who believes that people...

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  • 1972
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    Follow The Yellow Brick Road

    Follow The Yellow Brick Road

    1 1972 HD

    Jack Black is a disturbed actor who believes himself to be trapped in a television play, followed around by an invisible camera.

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  • 1976
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    Double Dare

    Double Dare

    1 1976 HD

    Martin Ellis (Alan Dobie) is a blocked screenwriter who invites Helen, an actress (Kika Markham), to a hotel in central London to discuss an idea for...

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  • 1971
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    Traitor

    Traitor

    8 1971 HD

    Western journalists visit Moscow to interview Adrian Harris, a former controller in British intelligence who was also a double agent for the USSR....

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  • 2003
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    The Singing Detective

    The Singing Detective

    5.1 2003 HD

    From his hospital bed, a writer suffering from a skin disease hallucinates musical numbers and paranoid plots.

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  • 1966
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    Where the Buffalo Roam

    Where the Buffalo Roam

    1 1966 HD

    Poor Willy’s mind has been warped by too many Westerns. He sees gunfighters on every corner, even though he’s in 1960s Swansea. Some...

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  • 1970
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    Angels Are So Few

    Angels Are So Few

    1 1970 HD

    This neat, intense drama, labelled “a fable for television”, stars Tom Bell as the scruffy, childlike Michael Biddle, who is invited in...

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  • 1987
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    Visitors

    Visitors

    6 1987 HD

    A British businessman whose family company has been taken over by a multinational corporation clashes with his new American manager while they both...

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  • 1994
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    Mesmer

    Mesmer

    6 1994 HD

    A biography of the eighteenth century Viennese physician, Franz Anton Mesmer, who used unorthodox healing practices based on his theory of "animal...

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  • 1966
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    Emergency Ward 9

    Emergency Ward 9

    1 1966 HD

    Drama set in a men's hospital ward, written by Dennis Potter. Characters include a cunning bronchitic Londoner, a strapped-up Pole and a dying man...

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  • 1979
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    Blue Remembered Hills

    Blue Remembered Hills

    6 1979 HD

    On an idyllic summer afternoon in the summer of 1943, a group of children play in the West Country hills, fields and forests. With no adults around,...

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  • 1974
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    Joe's Ark

    Joe's Ark

    1 1974 HD

    The religious beliefs of pet shop owner Joe (Freddie Jones) are shaken by the terminal illness of his daughter Lucy (Angharad Rees). For Potter, this...

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  • 1968
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    A Beast with Two Backs

    A Beast with Two Backs

    1 1968 HD

    A young local girl is murdered by a mentally disturbed youth, but the villagers blame a stranger, an Italian traveling showman and his bear, rather...

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  • 1973
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    Only Make Believe

    Only Make Believe

    1 1973 HD

    Playwright Christopher Hudson finds his medical problem hinders his writing. He employs secretary Sandra George and dictates his new play to her, but...

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  • 1960
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    Between Two Rivers

    Between Two Rivers

    7.3 1960 HD

    After a brief tutelage with innovative BBC documentary producer Denis Mitchell, Dennis Potter teamed with producer Anthony de Lotbiniere to film a...

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  • 1965
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    VOTE, VOTE, VOTE for Nigel Barton

    VOTE, VOTE, VOTE for Nigel Barton

    8 1965 HD

    Candidate Nigel Barton goes from idealism to cynicism as he becomes disillusioned and suspicious of hollow campaign promises.

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  • 1994
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    Message for Posterity

    Message for Posterity

    1 1994 HD

    A version of Dennis Potter's play for television, remade shortly before his death as the original 1960s version had been wiped.

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  • 1965
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    Stand Up, Nigel Barton

    Stand Up, Nigel Barton

    1 1965 HD

    Semi-autobiographical TV play by Dennis Potter, from the BBC's 'Wednesday Play' series. It deals with the experiences of Nigel Barton, a young man...

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  • 1968
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    The Bone Grinder

    The Bone Grinder

    1 1968 HD

    George, an ineffectual and inoffensive clerk, and his prim wife Gladys reserve their greatest efforts for preserving their respectibility. Sam, a...

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  • 1965
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    Alice

    Alice

    5 1965 HD

    In this look at Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898), aka Lewis Carroll, Dennis Potter mixed biographical drama with a psychological profile to...

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  • 1985
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    Dreamchild

    Dreamchild

    6.7 1985 HD

    Eighty-year-old Alice Hargreaves is about to visit Columbia University to attend a reception in honor of author Lewis Carroll. As a child, Alice had...

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  • 1982
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    Brimstone & Treacle

    Brimstone & Treacle

    6 1982 HD

    A strange young man has a sinister effect on the family of a middle-aged writer.

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  • 1968
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    Shaggy Dog

    Shaggy Dog

    6 1968 HD

    A no-nonsense businessman, Mr. Wilkie, is interviewed for a position with a top-of-the-line hotel chain corporation. During the interview, Wilkie...

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  • 1991
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    Secret Friends

    Secret Friends

    3.9 1991 HD

    During a train ride, an anxiety attack leads middle-aged illustrator John into an identity crisis. As his marital problems merge and blur into his...

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  • 1991
    imgMovies

    Secret Friends

    Secret Friends

    3.9 1991 HD

    During a train ride, an anxiety attack leads middle-aged illustrator John into an identity crisis. As his marital problems merge and blur into his...

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  • 1970
    imgS1 E6

    7.1 1970 HD

    During the Suez Crisis of 1956, two young clerks at the stuffy Foreign Office in Whitehall display little interest in the decline of the British...

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  • 1970
    imgS1 E4

    6.7 1970 HD

    The year is 2368 and a group of scientists are on the brink of a major breakthrough as they begin to tap into the memory of a man who died in the...

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  • 1970
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    7.7 1970 HD

    Tormented and bedridden by a debilitating disease, a mystery writer relives his detective stories through his imagination and hallucinations.

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  • 1970
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    6.9 1970 HD

    Daniel Feeld, writer of the film Karaoke, starts to believe that his characters are coming alive.

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  • 1970
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    8 1970 HD

    That Was the Week That Was, informally TWTWTW or TW3, is a satirical television comedy programme on BBC Television in 1962 and 1963. It was devised,...

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  • 1970
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    4.5 1970 HD

    The Wednesday Play is an anthology series of British television plays which ran on BBC1 from October 1964 to May 1970. The plays were usually written...

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  • 1970
    imgS1 E6

    7.75 1970 HD

    Pennies From Heaven is a 1978 BBC television drama serial written by Dennis Potter. The title is taken from a song of the same name written by Johnny...

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  • 1970
    imgS14 E16

    5.9 1970 HD

    Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more...

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  • 1970
    imgS8 E33

    3.8 1970 HD

    Thirty-Minute Theatre is an anthology drama series of short plays shown on BBC Television between 1965 and 1973, which was used in part at least as a...

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  • 1970
    imgS1 E7

    5.5 1970 HD

    Michael Henchard, an out-of-work hay-trusser, gets drunk at a fair and for five guineas sells his wife and child to a sailor. When the horror of his...

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  • 1970
    imgS1 E4

    5.6 1970 HD

    77-year-old Maurice James Kingsley writtes a successful novel about a fashion model, in this Dennis Potter miniseries. But Maurice’s furious...

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  • 1970
    imgS1 E4

    5.6 1970 HD

    77-year-old Maurice James Kingsley writtes a successful novel about a fashion model, in this Dennis Potter miniseries. But Maurice’s furious...

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  • 1970
    imgS1 E4

    5.6 1970 HD

    77-year-old Maurice James Kingsley writtes a successful novel about a fashion model, in this Dennis Potter miniseries. But Maurice’s furious...

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  • 1970
    imgS1 E6

    4 1970 HD

    The Italian adventurer and libertine Giovanni Jacopo Casanova lived from 1725 to 1798, but in this six-part series Dennis Potter attempted to find a...

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  • 1970
    imgS1 E4

    5.6 1970 HD

    77-year-old Maurice James Kingsley writtes a successful novel about a fashion model, in this Dennis Potter miniseries. But Maurice’s furious...

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  • 1970
    imgS1 E6

    6.4 1970 HD

    Dennis Potter adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel about how the rich languoring on the Riviera in the 1920s are slowly drawn into the...

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  • 1970
    imgS1 E6

    7.1 1970 HD

    During the Suez Crisis of 1956, two young clerks at the stuffy Foreign Office in Whitehall display little interest in the decline of the British...

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  • 1970
    imgS1 E7

    5.5 1970 HD

    Michael Henchard, an out-of-work hay-trusser, gets drunk at a fair and for five guineas sells his wife and child to a sailor. When the horror of his...

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  • 1970
    imgS1 E8

    1 1970 HD

    An anthology series of BBC television dramas on sexual themes. The same cast was featured in each production.

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  • 1970
    imgS1 E4

    5.5 1970 HD

    An Englishwoman married to a German is torn between love of her country and love of her husband.

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  • 1970
    imgS1 E6

    6 1970 HD

    An anthology series based on the Wessex Tales, a collection of short stories written by novelist Thomas Hardy.

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  • 1970
    imgS1 E4

    1 1970 HD

    Elderly couple Sylvia and Arthur Calvert are forced to move in with their widowed son and his children in Carshall New Town.

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  • 1970
    imgS1 E6

    6.5 1970 HD

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  • 1970
    imgS1 E6

    7.7 1970 HD

    Tormented and bedridden by a debilitating disease, a mystery writer relives his detective stories through his imagination and hallucinations.

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  • 1970
    imgS1 E6

    4 1970 HD

    The Italian adventurer and libertine Giovanni Jacopo Casanova lived from 1725 to 1798, but in this six-part series Dennis Potter attempted to find a...

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  • 1970
    imgS1 E6

    7.75 1970 HD

    Pennies From Heaven is a 1978 BBC television drama serial written by Dennis Potter. The title is taken from a song of the same name written by Johnny...

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  • 1970
    imgS1 E6

    7.1 1970 HD

    During the Suez Crisis of 1956, two young clerks at the stuffy Foreign Office in Whitehall display little interest in the decline of the British...

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