Arena: Dennis Potter on Television

First broadcast on BBC Four on 9 January 2005 to mark the tenth anniversary of the death of Dennis Potter, this programme focuses on Potter's substantial body of work as a television critic as well as his appearances on television to discuss his own work as a television dramatist.
The programme charts Potter's initial writing about television during the 1960s (with extracts from Potter's criticism read by Keith Barron), his appearances on television in the 1970s and 1980s where he was often asked to justify some of his striking comments about figures such as Margaret Thatcher and Michael Heseltine, the success of Pennies from Heaven and the hostile response to Blackeyes, and his final interview with Melvyn Bragg, shortly before his death in 1994.
Potter's insight and incisiveness about the nature of television, its great potential and its failure to often meet that potential, is evident throughout the programme with his belief and hope in a shared, collective culture a compelling constant.
The programme was produced by Martin Rosenbaum and directed by Anthony Wall.
Please note that the audio and video footage from the 1994 Channel 4 interview with Melvyn Bragg has been removed for copyright reasons and the documentary is uploaded here for educational purposes.