Potter, Dennis Christopher George

Potter, Dennis Christopher George (1935-1994), British playwright, author, and journalist. Potter was born on May 17, 1935, the son of a miner from the Forest of Dean. He received a grammar school education and then read Politics, Philosophy, and Economics (PPE) at Oxford University. During his time as a student there he edited the review Isis and wrote his first book The Glittering Coffin.

In a career that spanned 30 years he wrote many plays for television, the first of which was Vote, Vote, Vote for Nigel Barton, produced in 1965. It was the outcome of two important events in his life: his failed attempt to become a Labour member of parliament, and the onset of a disabling disease, psoriatic arthropathy, that afflicted him for the rest of his life. Potter's work has often been controversial. His play Brimstone and Treacle was banned by the BBC from 1976 to 1987 on the grounds that it was blasphemous, and Blackeyes, which he considered to be a protest against the exploitation of the female body and female beauty, was seriously misinterpreted. Potter described the critically acclaimed The Singing Detective (1985) as his most autobiographical work. Two of his finest plays are Blue Remembered Hills, in which a group of children are played by adult actors, and Pennies from Heaven, a musical drama. Potter is today considered one of the most innovative and brilliant television writers of his time, expanding the medium to combine reality and fantasy, drama and music, popular entertainment and social comment.