Dennis Potter: Three Television Plays (1980)

Cream in My Coffee (1980)
Dir. Gavin Millar

If the traditional British ‘summer holiday’ ever really existed outside of postcards and creative nostalgia, then by the year 1980 it was long into retirement.
Nevertheless, the hotels endured and it’s to one of them that an ageing married couple return, having spent time there together in 1934.

Past and present weave together to form a bigger picture, and through extrapolation we can write the forty-six summers that fell in-between.

Potter's venomous wit lightens some scenes, but mostly it’s a serious study of the destructive nature of secrets, the ennui that often follows marriage and the promises that love makes to please itself.

Lionel Jeffries is good as the old man who wants to live in the here and now but can’t help referencing the past. Peggy Ashcroft is hand on heart amazing as the sympathetic wife who fears to ruffle feathers.

Rain on the Roof (1980)
Dir. Alan Bridges

Some couples knowingly create opportunities for betrayal to flourish. Rain offers (a fictional?) insight into some of the potential reasons behind that kind of self-destructive/cathartic activity.

John (Malcolm Stoddard) and Janet (Cheryl Campbell) are one such couple.

Into the mix walks an illiterate young guy named Billy (Ewan Stewart). Billy’s emotions become a casualty when placed between a semi-neurotic housewife and her accused husband.

Rain is my personal favourite of the three television plays made in 1980 that were written by Potter.

Both Stewart and Campbell play their parts flawlessly, fully deserving of maximum praise.

Blade on the Feather (1980)
Dir. Richard Loncraine

Blade on the Feather contains within it complexities and themes that Potter returned to often, but none of which I can mention because their dramatic unearthing is a part of the journey.

Donald Pleasence plays a reclusive author who's having a hard time existing in the not-quite-perfect seclusion he’s created for himself, accentuated by the invasive camera angles and sharp editing of time.

Tom Conti's character is an intellectual who’s writing a thesis on the troubled author, meaning getting close to him is of paramount importance, but there are secrets on all sides. And there's a restless wife and daughter to contend with with, too.