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	Singing Detective, The
		Two key incidents in The Singing Detective are based on real-life incidents in childhood--his mother, a pub pianist, being kissed by a man, and Potter's writing a four-letter word on the flboard when his precocious facility as a young writer made him unpopular with other schoolchildren.
		The Singing Detective is thus not only the serial that the TV viewer is watching, but the fiction that Marlow is rewriting in his head.
		In terms of narrative frequency, The Singing Detective is further marked by a high degree of repetition--of words, events, and visual images--as the same event, or part of it, is retold, re-worked, or recontextualised.
	www.museum.tv /archives/etv/S/htmlS/singingdetec/singingdetec.htm (1059 words)

	The Singing Detective
		It soon becomes apparent that the detective story is merely one layer in the conflicting mental anguish of writer Marlow (brilliantly played by Michael Gambon) as Marlow silently plots his current life, his fictional story, and his troubled past.
		And the triumph of "The Singing Detective" is the clinical depiction of the mental trajectory of how a soulless writer struggles with reality -- disease as a catalyst -- triumphantly regaining his soul.
		Writing and creation is often a thankless and hateful task -- as Marlow the detective remarks at one point "plenty of clues and no solutions." Potter may not have solved the creative dilemma but the solution seems that to regain your feelings and touch base in reality you may have to abandon your creative drive.
	www.mediascreen.com /s/singingdetective.htm (415 words)

	Robert Downey Jr: Singing Detective
		At the Sundance Film Festival for the world premiere of his latest film, The Singing Detective, most of us who saw it agreed on two things: One, a second Oscar nomination is a distinct possibility and Two, portraying a character with hallucinatory alter-egos could well be a case of art imitating life.
		Based on Dennis Potter's TV series, Downey stars as Daniel Dark, a bitter, misogynistic psoriasis-sufferer, covered in a collage of painful flaky skin and sores, whose symptoms and sentiments are a symptom of a painful past and childhood memories.
		Downey's participation in Singing Detective had as much to do with his close friendship with Mel Gibson as the quality of the material.
	www.femail.com.au /robert_downey_jr_singing_detective.htm (1526 words)

	Singing Detective (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24)
		Livingston Taylor singing with siblings -- Livingston Taylor sings with a number of notables on his new album, "There You Are Again," but the ones that are the most striking are his siblings -- James and Kate...
		Singing Teacher For York the surrounding areas Urgently required Vocaltutor are looking for a qualified experienced singing teacher to teach 1-2-1 singing and vocal tuition all music styles to all ages.
		Vocaltutor are the only singing tuition network that cover the whole of the UK giving a high level of tuition to students developing their voice confidence and style.
	singingdetective.fondsinging.com (1046 words)

	tvdvdreviews.com -- The Singing Detective DVD Review
		The 1986 BBC miniseries The Singing Detective is a brilliantly hypnotic masterpiece of human redemption presented as a pastiche of film noir, medical drama, and lush musical.
		At heart, The Singing Detective is not a hospital drama or a detective story.
		The Singing Detective is not dealt with in much detail here, but the program does give insight into Potter's personality and the relationship between his life and his work.
	www.tvdvdreviews.com /singing.html (1445 words)

	BBC - BBC Four Drama - The Singing Detective
		Philip Marlow is in hospital with the skin complaint psoriasis; tormented with hallucinations about his past and future.
		As a distraction, he mentally recasts an old mystery, with himself as its hero - The Singing Detective.
		Philip is suspicious of Nicola, who claims a film company wants to option The Singing Detective.
	www.bbc.co.uk /bbcfour/cinema/potter/singing-detective.shtml (362 words)

	The Singing Detective
		In its original incarnation, The Singing Detective was a six-part BBC series that was popular with both audiences and critics.
		Watching this film is like watching a traffic accident; it's a scary thing to look at but it's hard to turn away.
		As the Singing Detective, he speaks with one of those annoying gumshoe accents and lip-syncs his way through some old standards.
	www.haro-online.com /movies/singing_detective.html (502 words)

	The Singing Detective
		Adding another layer to the television version, in the midst of the narrative Potter had his characters break into lip-synched songs and dance routines, pre-World Was II songs that express the idealized romance of pop culture, contrasted ironically with Dark's dysfunctional realities.
		The answer is yes, but, standing on its own, the film, if less compelling than the original, is, nonetheless, persuasive and reasonably true to its source.
		Since the date in which the film is set is later than that of the series, Potter shifted the flashback period to the 1940's and 50's, and the musical selections have been changed accordingly.
	www.culturevulture.net /Movies/SingingDetective.htm (549 words)

	Review: Singing Detective, The
		The film's screenplay was written by the late Dennis Potter, who created the mini-series, so there's no question of someone other than the original author taking over the property and ruining it.
		The film dramatizes some scenes from Dan's books, but, unlike in the mini-series, it is not developed as a parallel storyline.
		Ultimately, the film is about one man coming to grips with his demons and finding the path to redemption, but the process by which this is accomplished is much different from what one normally encounters in movies.
	www.reelviews.net /movies/s/singing_detective.html (979 words)

	Singing Detective, The (2003): Reviews
		The film's lack of dimension tends to render much of it banal, and Downey's lengthy harangues, as beautifully wrought as they are, are overly literary, which serves to make this intricate film seem all the more contrived.
		Admiring The Singing Detective is easy, and so is appreciating the originality of the story's conceit, the artistry of the actors and the directorial intelligence of Keith Gordon.
		What this Singing Detective really needed was to be reworked top to bottom, preferably by a writer fleeing some demons of his own.
	www.metacritic.com /video/titles/singingdetective (1228 words)

	'The Singing Detective'
		With his hideous scabs and excruciating pain, he's a latter-day elephant man, lost in the delirium of a screenplay-in-progress starring himself as a private eye (and dance-band crooner) tangled up in the murder of a prostitute.
		"The Singing Detective" is a faux film noir musical, mixing reality with fiction in 1950s Los Angeles: Dark's ex-wife (Robin Wright Penn) seems to be stealing his script and -- insult to injury -- sleeping with one of his characters.
		Derived from the 1986 British miniseries by Dennis Potter, its time-space cultural continuum is shifted from '40s U.K. to '50s U.S. The screenplay is a sort of existential "Maltese Falcon" -- a script within a script, fragmentally melding surreal comedy and expressionist psychodrama -- overly ambitious, with increasingly ponderous levels.
	www.post-gazette.com /movies/20031114detective1114fnp3.asp (448 words)

	Dennis Potter & The Singing Detective: Detective Story
		The story of The Singing Detective unfolds in three time periods: a 1980's hospital ward; The Forest of Dean (and later London) in the 1930's; and a film-noir fantasy London of the 1940's.
		The film-noir fantasy is from a novel he wrote entitled 'The Singing Detective' in which the character, Mark Binney, hires the help of the detective, Philip Marlow, to help him escape being framed for a murder.
		First we have the 'fictional' detective uncovering the murderer of the body in the river, secondly there is the psychiatrist, Dr. Gibbon's, detective work of uncovering Marlow's childhood trauma.
	www.britishfilm.org.uk /potter/detective.html (276 words)

	FilmStew.com • The Singing Detective
		Based on Potterâs hugely acclaimed BBC miniseries of the same name, the film proves to be an ambitious but constrained re-imagining that suffers from both the slight theatrics of its limited budget and a lack of clear definition between past and present, fact and fiction, and parody, homage and sincere dramatization.
		She fails to grasp the nuances of her multiple roles within the film, becoming the same, shrewish manipulator whether sheâs doting on her unappreciated husband or humping sloppily on a couch in one of his nightmares.
		The Singing Detective may well have a great film hiding behind the cardboard backgrounds and overloaded scenarios, but as the one thatâs finished and on screens across the country now, it deserves an early curtain call.
	www.filmstew.com /Content/ReviewsViews/Details.asp?Pg=1&ContentID=7158 (1027 words)

	The Singing Detective
		Like most remakes, re-imaginings or reinterpretations of classic films and TV shows, the film version of The Singing Detective feels like an unnecessary update of an original work that was perfectly fine (or in this case, one of the best television programmes ever made) in the first place.
		This change dilutes the film noir feel of the murder mystery story, which was an essential element of the TV series because Marlow’s detective story masked - and eventually helped him to uncover - the mysteries and secrets from his real life.
		Ultimately, the film is not without interest or merit, but like many recent remakes, it seems like a watered-down version of a classic original, and it’s the original version of The Singing Detective you really should be watching.
	www.talkingpix.co.uk /ReviewsSingingDetective.html (862 words)

	Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective
		He is the author of several detective novels, all of which, he would be quick to remind us, are out of print.
		Potter wrote several dramas for television, but The Singing Detective (which he had to write with a pen strapped to his hand) was the pinnacle of his long career.
		The Singing Detective is a modern pilgrim’s progress in which three narratives – Marlow’s hospital experiences, the pulp fiction that he is half-composing and half-hallucinating, and the boyhood memories that percolate into both his reality and his fiction – are braided together.
	www.culturevulture.net /Television/SingingDetective.htm (954 words)

	The Singing Detective: triple j film reviews
		Needless to say that the script is terrific for this film version of Potter's series, but it ends up being pretty shabbily handled by actor-turned-director Keith Gordon, who has massive problems juggling the fantasy/musical numbers with the hospital/reality sequences.
		Years ago, Gordon was an extra on Bob Fosse's great musical film All That Jazz (1979) which is a film comparable to The Singing Detective, similar in both style and story (a guy facing illness begins to sort through the rubble of his life, using fantasy as an 'out' and a means to self-actualisation).
		Instead, The Singing Detective came off looking as low rent as some of the back allies the story was set in.
	www.abc.net.au /triplej/review/film/s1154907.htm (675 words)

	BBC NEWS \| Entertainment \| Film \| Potter film panned by TV producer
		The producer of the original TV version of The Singing Detective has said the Hollywood re-make of the Dennis Potter drama is "too glossy for its own good".
		The film stars Robert Downey Jr as a bed-ridden writer who relives his stories through his imagination.
		While the film's screenplay comes from a version written by Potter - who died in 1994 aged 59 - Trodd said it may not have been wise to have allowed him to write his own Hollywood screenplays.
	news.bbc.co.uk /1/low/entertainment/film/3263411.stm (347 words)

	Jane Potter's Introduction to the movie of The Singing Detective
		For many The Singing Detective was the star in his crown, where everything came together in a glittering jewel of work that stands the test of time.
		The film is more diluted and sanitized than many expected but still provoked praise and ridicule, confusion and delight especially with American critics.
		So I hope you can watch this film with a fresh eye and an open heart - and I am delighted to be able to give our family support for the Voices in the Forest festival which can only remind us all that to takes risks may lead to greater things.
	www.yorksj.ac.uk /potter/TSD_movie_Jane.htm (531 words)

	The Singing Detective - Dennis Potter
		Many of his TV plays are, indeed, so well-written that they are fine reads all on their own, and The Singing Detective stands alongside Karaoke (see our review) as one of the most convincing examples.
		Marlow's fevers take him to different worlds, as there are flashbacks throughout the play to his childhood, as well as to scenes from what appears to be his detective novel (set during World War II), in which he appears as the "singing detective".
		The Singing Detective is also a profound play, a deep and touching meditation on life and art.
	www.complete-review.com /reviews/potterd/singingd.htm (980 words)

	The Singing Detective Movie Review - MovieWeb
		At its heart, The Singing Detective is yet another movie about self-re-discovery shabbily disguised as unconventional, stylistic satire - a film, in a sense, that we just didn't need and wasn't, in the first place, necessary.
		For a film described by director Keith Gordon as "your basic surreal lip-synched 1950's rock and roll musical / expressionist, absurdist film noir" there is a shocking lack of cinema to this supposedly ripe cinematic experience.
		Unfortunately, however, for as visual and stylistic as The Singing Detective aspires to be, it is, quite honestly, a rather simple character study, and its moments of greatest success are the smaller, more intimate points that require little more than two people and a chair.
	www.movieweb.com /movies/film/88/288/review179.php (604 words)

	The Singing Detective (2003) - London Movie Review
		At the same time, his fevered imagination blends together elements of his own trashy detective novel, his past and his present, interspersed with various impromptu song and dance numbers from those around him in the hospital.
		Director Keith Gordon describes The Singing Detective as “your basic comedy drama 1950s surrealist lip-synching rock and roll musical absurdist expressionist film noir pastiche naturalist character study”, which presumably gave the marketing department a few headaches.
		The switch to the 1950s from the 1940s of the series is unfortunate and doesn’t really have the same impact, since the fantasy 1940s element originally dove-tailed with his war-time experiences.
	www.viewlondon.co.uk /films/the-singing-detective-2003-film-review-5649.html (523 words)

	Dennis Potter & The Singing Detective
		It is often regarded as the epitome of Dennis Potter's writing, the peak of his creativity and the culmination of all his previous themes, but at the same time it stands out as a very atypical work, with its use of genre and the absence of many Dennis Potter themes.
		I think it is more reasonable to regard The Singing Detective as a turning point, an accumulation of many old themes and an introduction of new ones for further exploration.
		Even if it doesn't cover all of Dennis Potter's themes it is the one single work in his canon that attempts to bring together the greatest number of themes in one text.
	www.britishfilm.org.uk /potter (223 words)

	Amazon.com: The Singing Detective: DVD: Robert Downey Jr.,Robin Wright Penn,Mel Gibson,Jeremy Northam,Katie ... (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24)
		It was a daring (and some might say foolhardy) assignment to film Dennis Potter's screenplay, written out of Potter's desire to see his semi-autobiographical drama in feature-length form, but Gordon rose to the occasion with a superlative cast led by Robert Downey, intense as ever as Potter's on-screen alter ego.
		In both films, a man's past and his salvation, of which even he is not aware, are to be found in his hallucinations and the mystery solved with the help of a sympathetic psychoanalyst.
		The film is a strange animal, all right, a work sans genre, and at times Gordon seems to have overreached himself, grasping for effects he isn't quite able to achieve.
	www.amazon.com /Singing-Detective-Robert-Downey-Jr/dp/B0001AW04I (2013 words)

	Compare Prices and Read Reviews on Singing Detective, The: Series at Epinions.com
		The Singing Detective was directed by Jon Amiel (who went on to do films like Entrapment and The Core), but the dominant voice in the telling of the story is screenwriter Dennis Potter.
		Marlow’s father is seen singing some of the same songs as the detective.
		I haven’t seen the film myself, so I’m only guessing, but I get the feeling that while the new version will be forgotten in a couple of years, the original miniseries will endure for years to come as one of the towering achievements of the medium.
	www.epinions.com /content_97620889220 (975 words)

	Movie Review - The Singing Detective - www.ericdsnider.com - The Official Website of Eric D. Snider
		By the time Keith Gordon's odd, extremely stylized remake of "The Singing Detective" gets around to its point, the audience is liable to be angry at it for dragging its feet so long, and for being so weird in the process.
		"The Singing Detective," based on a beloved 1986 miniseries, is about an author named Dan Dark (Robert Downey Jr.) who suffers from a debilitating skin disease that has rendered him even more hateful and misogynistic than he used to be.
		It is a slow-moving, uneventful detective story, mixed with the only slightly more compelling story of Dan Dark and his gross skin.
	www.ericdsnider.com /movies/the-singing-detective (384 words)

	Slant Magazine - Film Review: The Singing Detective
		The film is a portrayal of a hospital bound man who sifts through his troubled past, and how that past informs not only his present misery but also his creative pursuits.
		The entirety of Gordon's Singing Detective is a nightmare, and one so over-the-top and outlandish it's difficult to find any humanity buried beneath.
		Unfortunately, the film reveals this memory early on, and as such there's no mystery or epiphany waiting to be unlocked.
	www.slantmagazine.com /film/film_review.asp?ID=849 (986 words)

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