The Singing Detective

The Singing Detective is a critically acclaimed BBC television miniseries, written by Dennis Potter and starring Michael Gambon.

Jon Amiel directed all six episodes ("Skin", "Heat", "Lovely Days", "Clues", "Pitter Patter", "Who Done It") for the BBC with some co-production funding from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The serial was first broadcast on BBC One in 1986 on Sunday nights from November 16 to December 21 with later PBS and cable television showings in the United States, where it won a 1989 Peabody Award. It was included in the 1992 Dennis Potter retrospective at the Museum of Television & Radio and then became a permanent addition to the Museum's collections in both New York and Los Angeles. The DVD set was released April 15, 2003.

The serial was adapted into a 2003 film featuring Robert Downey Jr. and Mel Gibson, with the setting altered to the United States.

Plot

The story revolves around mystery writer Philip E. Marlow and his most recent hospital stay. Having reached its peak, his psoriatic arthropathy (a chronic skin and joint disease) forms lesions and sores covering his entire body, and partially cripples his hands and feet. Dennis Potter suffered from this disease himself, and wrote with a pen tied to his fist much in the same fashion Marlow does in the last episode. Although severe, Marlow's case was intentionally understated compared to Potter's real case: Potter's skin would sometimes crack and bleed.^[1]

As a result of constant pain, a fever caused by the condition, and his refusal to take medication, Marlow falls into a fantasy world involving his Chandleresque novel, The Singing Detective, an escapist novel about a detective (also named "Philip Marlow") who sings at a dance hall and takes "the jobs the guys who don't sing" won't take.

The real Marlow also experiences flashbacks to his childhood in rural England, and his mother's suicide in wartime London. The rural location is presumably the Forest of Dean, Potter's birthplace and the location for filming, but this is never stated explicitly. The death of his mother is one of several recurring images in the series; Marlow uses it (whether subconsciously or not) in his murder mystery, and sometimes replaces her face with different women in his life, real and imaginary. The noir mystery, however, is never actually solved; all that is ultimately revealed is an intentionally vague plot involving smuggled Nazi war criminals and Soviet agents attempting to stop them. This perhaps reflects Marlow's view that fiction should be "all clues and no solutions."

The three worlds of the hospital, the noir thriller, and wartime England often merge in Marlow's mind, resulting a fourth layer, in which character interactions that would otherwise be impossible (e.g. fictional characters interacting with non-fictional characters) occur. This is evident in that many of Marlow's friends and enemies (perceived or otherwise) are represented by characters in the novel: particularly, one of the boys from his childhood, Mark Binney, becomes conflated with his father Raymond, Marlow's mother's lover, and appears as the central antagonist in the "real" and noir worlds (although the "real" Binney/Finney is ultimately a fantasy as well). The use of Binney as a villain stems from an event in his early childhood where Marlow framed the young Binney for defecating on a disciplinarian elementary teacher's desk. The innocent Binney is brutally beaten in front of the student body, and Marlow is lauded for telling the "truth". These events haunt Marlow, as it is revealed that the real Binney eventually ends up in a mental institution. The villainous Binney/Finney character is killed off in both realities.

Several of the actors play different parts: Marlow and his alter-ego, the singing detective, are both played by Gambon. Marlow as a boy is played by Lyndon Davies. Patrick Malahide plays three central characters - the contemporary Finney (who Marlow thinks is having an affair with his ex-wife, played by Janet Suzman); the imaginary Binney (a central character in the murder plot); and Raymond, a friend of Marlow's father who has an affair with his mother (Alison Steadman). Steadman plays both Marlow's mother, and the mysterious "Lili", one of the murder victims.

Production

According to Potter's original script, the hospital scenes and noir scenes were to be shot with television (video) and film cameras respectively, with the period material (Marlow's childhood) filmed in black-and-white.^[1] However, all scenes were ultimately shot on film, over Potter's objections. Potter had also wanted the hospital scenes to maintain the sensibility of sitcom conventions.^[1] Although this was tempered in the final script, some character interactions retain this concept. For example, Mr. Hall and Reginald, who are also intended to serve as a mock chorus for the main action occurring in the hospital.^[1]

Originally, the title of the series was "Smoke Rings", and the Singing Detective noir thriller was to be dropped after the first episode because Potter felt it would not hold the audience's attention.^[1] The title may have referred to a particular monologue Marlow has in the first episode, referring to the fact that, despite everything else, the one thing he really wants is a cigarette.^[1] In perhaps another hold over, Marlow's medical and mental progress is gauged, in some ways, by his ability to reach over to his dresser and get his pack of cigarettes.^[1]

Sources

Borrowing portions of his first novel, Hide and Seek (1973), Potter added autobiographical aspects (or, as he put it, deeply "personal" aspects),^[1] along with 1940s popular music and the aforementioned film noir stylistics. The result is regarded by some as one of the peaks of 20th-century drama.^[2] Marlow's hallucinations are not far from the Philip Marlowe in the film adaptation of Raymond Chandler's Murder, My Sweet, with Dick Powell as Marlowe. Powell himself would later portray a "singing detective" on radio's Richard Diamond, Private Detective, serenading to his girlfriend, Helen Asher (Virginia Gregg), at the end of each episode.

A reference is made in the last episode to a novel by Agatha Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. This may be meant to suggest that Marlowe is an unreliable narrator.

Music

As well as its darker themes, the series is notable for its use of 1940s-era music, which is often incorporated into surreal musical numbers (most notably "Dry Bones", "Accentuate the Positive" and "The Teddy Bear's Picnic"). This is a device Potter used in his earlier miniseries Pennies From Heaven. The main theme music is the classic "Peg O' My Heart", of Ziegfeld Follies fame. The use of upbeat music as the theme for such a dark story is perhaps a reference to the Carol Reed classic The Third Man, with a harmonica in the place of a zither (The Third Man is indeed referenced in a number of camera shots, according to DVD commentary).^[1]

Director Jon Amiel compiled and spliced the generic thriller music used throughout the series from 60 library tapes he had brought together.^[1]

The following is a chronological soundtrack listing:

• "Peg O' My Heart" - Max Harris & his Novelty Trio (theme song; instrumental)
• "I've Got You Under My Skin" - The BBC Dance Orchestra directed by Henry Hall
• "Blues in the Night" - Anne Shelton
• "Dry Bones" - Fred Waring & His Pennsylvanians
• "Rockin' in Rhythm" - The Jungle Band (Duke Ellington and his Famous Orchestra)
• "Cruising Down the River" - Lou Preager Orchestra
• "Don't Fence Me In" - Bing Crosby & The Andrews Sisters
• "It Might As Well Be Spring" - Dick Haymes
• "Bird Song at Eventide" - Ronnie Ronalde with Robert Farnon and his Orchestra
• "Paper Doll" - The Mills Brothers
• "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" - Al Bowlly with The Ray Noble Orchestra
• "Lili Marlene" - Lale Andersen
• "I Get Along Without You Very Well" - Lew Stone Band
• "Do I Worry?" - The Ink Spots
• "Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive" - Bing Crosby & The Andrews Sisters
• "The Umbrella Man" - Sammy Kaye and his Orchestra
• "You Always Hurt the One You Love" - The Mills Brothers
• "After You've Gone" - Al Jolson with Matty Malneck's Orchestra and The Four Hits and a Miss
• "It's a Lovely Day Tomorrow" - Jack Payne and his Orchestra
• "Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall" - Ella Fitzgerald & The Ink Spots
• "The Very Thought of You" - Al Bowlly & The Ray Noble Orchestra
• "The Teddy Bear's Picnic" - The Henry Hall Orchestra
• "We'll Meet Again" - Vera Lynn

Trivia

• The Singing Detective ranked as number 20 on the British Film Institute's list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes, voted by industry professionals in 2000.

References

Wikipedia information about The Singing Detective This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "The Singing Detective". It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer). Help contribute to Americola and edit this article.