Pennies from Heaven (1978–1979) User Reviews

Bob Hoskins is radiant in a superlative production

[trimmerb1234 · 8/10 · 12 September 2006]

Very few remain who were adults in the 1930s. Even their children are now elderly so their notions of the period are impressions gained from that earlier generation - insufficient to re-create that period but able to recognize authenticity.

Bob Hoskins absolutely sparkles in his portrayal of the sexually passionate little guy song-salesman frustrated in his work and in his marriage to a prudish and modest wife (Gemma Craven, also a brilliant performance). Both had their careers launched by this peerless production. Extraordinary performance too from former comedian Dave King as the police inspector, desperately torn between his duty, working class respectability and the exquisite vulnerability of the exquisite Gemma Craven. Wonderful evocation of mean and depressing '30's Britain with its libidinous popular music and still prudish morality. It was a landmark production which brought out performances from the cast that many did not later equal.

Wherein was the genius? Firstly the peerless quality of the production. Secondly the casting, coaxing unmatched performances from the cast. Guess I'm in a minority in not so highly rating Dennis Potter as a writer. Potter's story provided a framework on which these things could reach a peak. I suspect he had a larger involvement than simply writer in "Pennies from Heaven" - the period feel was so sure-footed. But imagine a production with lesser talents in cast and direction etc. - what are you left with? The 1981 remake illustrates this.

The central striking idea of having leads dreamily miming to romantic ballads was earlier seen in the 1947 British film "It Always Rains on Sundays" - dreary lives brightened by dreamy music. What was the stuttering accordion player all about? The murder of the blind girl?

Potter was a former TV critic with an obsessional memory of his childhood in the 1940s in the Forest of Dean. The latter spawned Potter's unpretentious but brilliant semiautobigraphical "Blue Remembered Hills" TV film. His later productions became both more obscure and increasingly rooted the horrible disabling illness which gradually overcame him, and one suspected, his frustrated longing for female youth and beauty. The increasing obscurity of his later works were attempts to achieve "high art" - and Potter's reputation being what it was, who dared say otherwise?

I think he had a limited amount to say but when he wrote about his treasured memories, the honesty and authenticity made for productions which have become classics.

Memorable

[evans-15475 · 9/10 · 23 October 2021]

There was only 1 thing we were talking about in the school playground and that was Gemma cravens nipples rewatching it today as "research" I can see why we were so excited so new but really teenage boys were desperately in need of the internet.

Brilliantly evokes the hopes and despairs of humanity

[RJV · 10/10 · 18 November 1999]

Dennis Potter's PENNIES FROM HEAVEN is a masterpiece of both style and substance. It is a masterpiece of style in that it vividly conjures the look and atmosphere of mid 1930s England. This setting perfectly complements the original recordings of Depression era songs that emerge from the characters' mouths when they try to express themselves. It is a masterpiece of substance in that it is a riveting drama, sometimes exhilarating, sometimes poignant, sometimes both simultaneously.

PENNIES FROM HEAVEN dramatizes the trials and tribulations of Arthur Parker (Bob Hoskins), a song sheet salesman who unceasingly hopes the lyrics of the music he tries to peddle will become reality. It is a compelling story not only because of the novel use of lip synching to illustrate Parker's and the other characters' fantasies, but because of Potter's stark contrast between the songs' cheery lyrics and the characters' troubled lives. PENNIES also benefits from the cast's persuasive performances, especially Hoskins, Gemma Craven as his repressed wife Joan and Cheryl Campbell as a shy schoolteacher Arthur's infatuated with. One feels great empathy for the characters, even though they are flawed, because one can easily identify with their wishes and frustrations.

On one level, PENNIES FROM HEAVEN is a chilling cautionary tale- a warning that dreams of paradise are folly because life is cruel and hard. On another level, it is an inspiring story of hope- that even when life is at its most grim, we can always lift our spirits with those same dreams. Whatever message one may perceive, PENNIES FROM HEAVEN is thoroughly moving and absorbing, a testimony to the late Dennis Potter's genius.

A rich and complicated musical parable from the mind of Dennis Potter

[ThreeSadTigers · 25 March 2008]

By the time Pennies From Heaven was first broadcast in the spring of 1978, writer Dennis Potter had already attracted a fair share of positive and negative criticism for his preceding works, Moonlight on the Highway, Double Dare and Casanova. This troika of bleak works, all of which were deeply self-referential and used the subtext of popular songs as an underpinning for the dark themes lurking beneath the polite veneer of normality, would very much define the style and concept of Pennies From Heaven; with Potter being awarded a greater degree of control over his material for the first time following the success of the three plays listed above and of course, the mass tabloid controversy surrounding his previous work, Brimstone and Treacle. Despite the originality of those plays, it is safe to say that this was a definite turning point for Potter, and a work of unbridled and undiluted creativity that would go towards the creation of later classics like The Singing Detective, Black Eyes and Blue Remembered Hills.

The plot, as covered in more detail by other reviewers, seems fairly simplistic. Arthur, a amiable working-class Cockney, is trapped in a sexless marriage with staunched middle-class wife Joan, works long hours as a travelling sheet-music salesman, partakes of the occasional affair and, indulges himself in bouts of wild exaggeration amongst the other familiar-faced salesmen that he meets on his weekly rounds. For Arthur, this isn't just a job, but also an escape (both literal - in the sense that it gets him out of the house and away from the watchful eyes of polite society - and metaphoric, also), as he takes solace in the words and music of the romantic ballads that he foists upon local music shop stockists for the odd bob or too. The way in which Potter uses the songs and the way in which they have been integrated into the action is superb and still seems revolutionary some thirty years after the programme's initial conception, as is the opening scene, in which Arthur gazes wistfully into the bathroom mirror before suddenly breaking into song - or maybe not - as the rough and very much manly Arthur is merely lip-synching to some heartbreaking ode sung by some delicate young woman! This first instance of musical underpinning - as Potter not only hints at Arthur's state of mind through the contemplative lyrics, but also hints at a deeper fragility and sensitivity that is often lost in the pursuit of macho bravado - is still completely astounding, with Potter and director Piers Haggard setting a scene that is surreal, fanciful and entirely fabricated, but also overflowing with pain, angst, longing and degradation.

It is important for us to remember that Arthur, although out of step with the repressed, stiff-upper-lipped society in which he inhabits, is a creature desperate for love and physical understanding. His actions throughout the series might suggest otherwise (the frustration, sexual tension and occasional bouts of misogyny), he nonetheless is capable of moments of real warmth and tenderness, which is best illustrated in his growing relationship with Eileen. Although very much about Arthur and his journey, Potter also offers us two very complex female characters with Joan, Arthur's prim and proper wife of traditional middle-class values, and Eileen, the naïve yet passionate schoolteacher from the sheltered reaches of the forest of Dean (a continual point of influence in Potter's work). Both women love Arthur despite his actions and the reactions of those around him, and yet, we are left questioning throughout as to whether or not Arthur is the mind-mannered, though sexually frustrated dreamer we originally though, or if he is, perhaps, something much darker, and more predatory?

It would be wrong to go into any greater detail regarding the deeper implications of the plot, not least for those who have yet to see the programme, but also, because I'm not entirely sure I've grasped everything that Potter was suggesting. Like his later masterpiece The Singing Detective, Pennies From Heaven is a series that works on multiple levels. On the one hand, it's a character piece... a journey for the character tied neatly into a format of the "road-movie". On top of that, it's a morality story... a play on the notion of fidelity and infidelity, love and lust, longing and perversion. On top of this we have a police story blurred by elements of self-referentialism, and then we have the music! The music is perfectly chosen, not only fitting the mood of the scene that it accompanies, but also revealing more about the characters and their situations through the lyrics and the tone of the singer's delivery. Sometimes the use of music can be comedic (or, darkly comedic), like, for example, in The Bad Man number, or it can be quite sinister; like the piece with the accordion man in the homeless shelter. More often, however, it evokes the sadness and longing at the heart of the characters.

The choreography, lighting, design and direction is impeccable throughout, with the crew using the limitation of having to combine studio filming and location filming to their advantage, by further juxtaposing the real with the surreally fabricated. Although it's not as great as the Singing Detective, Pennies From Heaven is no less a work of bold genius. Though at times it can be quite frustrating, it is, nonetheless, a series that benefits greatly from multiple viewings, with each new viewing revealing further interpretations that we may have previously missed. The performances from the three leads are all great and help to carry the emotional weight of the project well, although it is the lead performances from Bob Hoskins as the complicated Arthur that is the real draw. Like most of the work of Dennis Potter, Pennies From Heaven is a rich and complex musical parable that has stood the test of time perfectly.

An unforgettable memory from my youth.

[TMMVDS · 10/10 · 17 March 2004]

I was 14 when Pennies From Heaven came out on our TV. The year was 1989. I didn't see it from the start and I was very fortunate indeed than I managed to see it at all. I always remember that magical moment when I saw three women dancing and singing "You Rascal You". From that moment I was totally hooked. I hardly could wait the next week episodes, and after them I was floating somewhere in the sky for sometime.

After that TV-series I have never seen anything else which has affected me as it did. There was some magical aura about it, something which you can hardly explain. The actors were great, especially Sherilyn Campbell were adorable. Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters in that movie version were nothing compared to these original 'lovebirds'. And of course those songs, those wonderful partly forgotten old dance numbers were the salt and soul in Pennies From Heaven.

I think it goes without saying that the Brits are geniuses of making great TV-drama. And that TV-series is an unique example of their craftsmanship in that area.

Pennies From Heaven - One of the best

[vwalane · 10/10 · 29 August 2006]

This series first aired when I was completing my school career and encouraged me to watch other Dennis Potter work. I have watched re-runs and the series on DVD many times since and I am still struck by new and startling elements in it's writing. It is one of the finest pieces of television the BBC ever produced. Dennis Potter was a unique talent with an ear for how people spoke and the ability to cut through the words to get to the truth. Not all his work was to the standard of Pennies From Heaven but it was always engaging and thought-provoking. This series is in the top 25 of the BFI's poll of best television and rightly so.

If you have never seen it, watch it and if you saw it years ago, it bears re-watching. Great writing like this always offers something new and fresh.

Extraordinary

[galensaysyes · 10/10 · 28 August 2000]

Occasionally a work comes along whose mood is so unique and so vividly communicated that it can't be forgotten. This is one of those. The feeling in it that clutches at one right away is that of desperation. I don't know of another work in any medium that conveys it so intensely as this does in the opening scenes of Bob Hoskins's character trying, and failing, to get it across to his thunderingly oblivious wife. He wants so little and he can't get it, can't understand it, can't even express it except that it's what's in the songs he sells. He's troubled by his sexual desires, is perhaps even more troubled by his glimmers of spiritual yearning, in his feelings for the blind girl, and is too simple to sort it all out. The woman who's able to take him out of it, for a brief space anyhow, amazingly embodies everything that the songs promised but that he never hoped to see realized, and his gratified delight, blooming unexpectedly out of his life of despair, is very inspiring--ironically so since his behavior toward her has been shameful and her behavior worse, by conventional standards, and will become worse still, to the point that he finds himself embroiled in a lot more than he bargained for. "Why?" he asks; "Because I felt like it," she says, and he sees her point: never before were they been able to do what they felt like, and this is it, for better or worse. It's his way out, if it is a way out; the story is profoundly, irresolvably ambiguous about it, to the last minute. Was he--are we--damned from the outset? Asked where things went wrong, he says the day he was born. Or are we saved from the outset? The story says we couldn't go through all this without a happy ending--just like the songs. Is what they have to offer a fantasy, or a glimpse of the only thing worth holding on to? All this is just a tiny fraction of all that could be said about the series. Dennis Potter never did anything like as good again (and neither has anyone else); Bob Hoskins and Cheryl Campbell gave the performances of their careers, in roles most actors would die for. Every part was a great part; every scene was something that had never been seen before. There are faults, too, but they only point up what an amazing achievement this was. (To its admirers the film version must seem catastrophic.) And when it isn't sad, very funny. This is the best television I ever expect to see.

A classic

[vanjac12 · 10/10 · 19 December 2004]

I just saw this on DVD, after seeing the film with Steve Martin, which I also thought was good, but this version is great. I am inspired to write my first comment for IMD after seeing this. Don't miss this. It had me in tears and laughing. So many truths about life, exposing what idiots we humans are, and what really makes life worth living.

It appears that Chicago (the musical) was also inspired by the trial sequence (absent in the movie version).

The whole story is better in this long format.

What a creative geniuses Potter was. The abrupt changes of movie format (people breaking out singing in voices not there own) has an effect that must be experienced.

The way it points out the hypocrisies re sex is great (one is tempted to say "we are past all that now", but are we?).

Van

Bob Hoskins Is Perfect in the Lead Role!

[james362001 · 10/10 · 25 February 2002]

Thanks to the PBS Network, KCET 28 Los Angeles, I was able to see "Pennies From Heaven" years ago during a tribute to writer, Dennis Potter. I throughly enjoyed this tv mini-series. To be honest in this review, I did not get to see the last episodes of "Pennies From Heaven" because my VHS video tape cut off after six hours of recording. The last scene I saw was when Bob Hoskins and the blonde lady were eating at a ritzy restaurant and had just tasted the wine. But I throughly enjoyed all that I had seen. The drama, the comedy and the good ole music is fantastic. Bob Hoskins is a young 36 in this film. Handsome and dashing. He is perfect in the lead role. It is fun to watch him lip-syncing. Bob Hoskins acting is the best and the top. His clarity of emotions that he brings forth (to the camera, to the viewer) is impeccable. Oh, how I wish this fine production were available on VHS video or DVD. I guess the only chance of seeing this tv mini-series again is if the PBS network in Los Angeles broadcasts it again. The 25th Anniversary of this "Pennies From Heaven" tv-mini-series is on March 7, 2003.

Words And Muzak

[writers_reign · 6/10 · 10 September 2009]

Seeing it - as I have just done - as a whole entity rather than over six weeks as it was transmitted originally - possibly lessens the impact, for example the central conceit which has characters miming to popular songs of the day at the drop of a downbeat may well have sustained a novelty value is seen just once a week but viewing two episodes a day for three days one begins to question what all the fuss was about. Apart from that the utilization of popular songs in non-musical stories isn't exactly new. Back in 1941 George Stevens directed Penny Serenade in which Cary Grant and Irene Dunn relived their meeting, courtship, marriage and separation in terms of the popular songs that punctuated their life together and whilst they didn't go so far as to mime to them the basic idea was firmly entrenched some 37 years before Potter wrote Pennies From Heaven. It seems equally clear that Potter was a fan of Irwin Shaw, who, in novel after novel explored the role that chance plays in human life. This runs through Potter's serial from the first episode when Arthur Parker (Bob Hoskins) picks up a vagrant, The Accordion Man (Kenneth Colley) and drops him in Gloucester. Later on another trip - he is a travelling salesman - he stops by the roadside to relieve himself in an adjacent field and encounters a blind girl, they exchange a few words and he goes on his way. The girl is later murdered - by, as it turns out, the Accordion Man - and Arthur is suspected. At the time of the murder he was calling on one of his clients in a music shop (Parker sells sheet music) BUT, because on a previous visit he had seen and been smitten by a female customer (Cheryl Campbell) he offers the shopkeeper one dozen copies of sheet music gratis in exchange for the girl's address; thus although he did have an alibi it is unprovable - by the time of his arrest the shop has changed hands and although the books have passed to the new owner there is no record of the previous owner purchasing anything on that day. Nor is that the only example of Chance affecting lives. The girl in question is a virginal schoolteacher until she is seduced and impregnated by Arthur, is fired from her job, leaves both home and the area, moves to London and becomes a prostitute. It's difficult to determine what Potter is trying to say other than Chance is not always a fine thing. The acting is of a fairly high standard if the period detail is sometimes a little strained. Maybe if I'd seen it over six weeks thirty years ago it might have impressed more.

Truly original

[danielwill · 10/10 · 4 March 2000]

I remember seeing this on TV when it first came out. I was changing channels, and here were these woman, tap dancing on a coffin, lip syncing, "I'll be glad when you're dead, you rascal you." I was hooked.

It was the first time I ever saw Bob Hoskins, who managed to make a character who was truly awful somehow loveable.

It's a depression-era story, and while the story itself is grim, somehow the telling is joyful, with the cast breaking into "song." The songs are wonderful old songs, and they just mouth to them, and it creates a surreal feeling, but one that works, because it's as if this is what they are feeling (and could have felt at the time in the vernacular of the old songs).

The whole telling of this story is so original and vivid that you must watch it when you can.

==> Don't confuse this with the movie version, directed by Herbert Ross, with Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters has spectacular production values (unfortunately, the biggest production number was actually cut), but Steve Martin, great as he is, just doesn't make you like and feel for him the way Hoskins does. Bernadette is sufficiently waif-like, but she lacks Gemma Craven's grittiness.

Christopher Walken is the highlight of the film, doing an incredible song/dance/striptease on a bar that shows what a great dancer he is.

Sordid story with entertaining musical interludes

[dave-2395 · 2/10 · 1 September 2014]

With a title from an era popular song, and the generally favorable reviews, we expected this mini-series to be a typically entertaining British costume period piece. At first, it looked like it might be so, with the lead characters oddly bursting into lip-syncing some of the best tunes that came out of the 20s and 30s. But it was clear that the series was destined to irritate, annoy, and bore. Not only by the poor acting and script in between the musical interludes, satirically coupling the sordid adventures of an ineffectual sheet-music salesman and the other uninteresting people he encounters. In the first episode (the only one we could bear to watch, and even that we could not completely finish) one of the major characters is a stuttering epileptic street musician. We are treated to an entire seizure by this pathetic person, painful enough to witness in real life, but with as much entertainment value as an extended heart attack. Another notable scene is the salesman's simulated sex with a dowdy prostitute in an automobile. If this and more of same sounds interesting, "Pennies From Heaven" might be worth a few pennies from you. And that is all it could possibly be worth.

However, the lip-sync musical interludes, sometimes with imaginative choreography and close attention to era detail, were very well done, and kept us watching long after we lost interest in the story itself. This could be made into a truly entertaining show by editing out the prosaic perversity in between. Sort of an extended retro MTV. That is the only reason we would not give it a worse rating than we have.

de niro from Scotland misses the point

[david-1604 · 30 January 2005]

To evaluate Pennies from Heaven solely in terms of its use of 1930s dance tunes is at best blinkered and at worst deeply stupid. What Potter did with those tunes was to point up how his characters sought refuge in what now would be called 'pop culture' to escape the grim realities of the time - and he was writing about the 1930s: the Depression, Fascism, Stalinism, etc. And Potter was genuinely fond of the 30s tunes that were used: I don't think the series mocks the songs at all, but their up-beat denial of misery is what makes their use so powerful as they counterpoint the characters' despair.

Whatever else Dennis Potter might have done (I am not an unqualified fan) this series is just about the greatest drama series ever seen on British TV; except, that is, for Potter's last word on his 'lip-sync' method, The Singing Detective, from 1987.

Wonderful series of musical escapism

[adamlives-1 · 10/10 · 15 October 2006]

With all the characters suddenly bursting into song, thankfully mimed to the original artists, this series made new ground. Very entertaining, lots of obscure but brilliant supporting actors, and a great script. The central role was brilliantly portrayed by Hoskin's frustrated salesman, trying to be taken seriously but also looking for satisfaction from his hopelessly frigid wife. His lust interest is one of those women who ooze sex appeal, and it's easy to understand how a man could fall when confronted with such unbridled passion. The whole series focuses on repressed desires and imagined hopes, as expressed by the episodes of song and dance. Notable is the courtroom scene in which the entire jury bursts into a routine. One to buy and keep.

The Greatest Thing That Has Been Made for Television

[guy_lazarus · 10/10 · 18 May 2001]

"Pennies from Heaven" is the greatest thing that has been made for television (if we think of Fassbinder's "Berlin Alexanderplatz" as a film rather than television). Superb. Bob Hoskins is brilliant.

It is a sin this isn't available on tape of DVD.

Pennies From Heaven--1978 BBC TV Program

[steven_torrey · 10/10 · 22 June 2020]

Dennis Potter wrote the 1981 film adaptation of his 1978 TV series. For my money, the film adaptation is superior, tighter, to a sprawling TV series of six 75 minute programs.

In the 1981 film adaptation with Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters, there was real ambiguity here whether Arthur Parker murdered the blind girl; there is real ambiguity in the TV Program as well. Where there is NO ambiguity is when Eileen Everson (played by Cheryll Cambell) murders in cold blood with a shotgun the farmer whose barn Arthur & Eileen sought comfort. But that cold blooded murder never comes up for trial, and is never reported, while Arthur's (maybe yes, maybe no) murder of the blind girl goes to Trial.

This presents a serious flaw in thematic development. Arthur is found guilty of murder of the blind girl and is sentenced to be hung, a sentence shown on TV program as being carried out. In the closing scene, Arthur shows up on the bridge where Eileen is considering jumping off as suicide.

In the movie, Arthur is also found guilty of murder of the blind girl, and just as mysteriously, Arthur shows up at the final film scene. What works in the movie, falls terribly flat in the TV series. The point made in the movie cannot be underestimated: the songs derive from Movie Scenes (Let's Face the Music and Dance--from "Follow the Fleet"), a movie where we know nothing is real, no one was shot, no one really died, they all acknowledge this is "make-believe-land". And sure enough, Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers are still alive with every re-showing of TOP HAT; Judy Garland lives with every showing of THE WIZARD OF OZ--not the cadaverous, drug addled Judy Garland of her last days, but a vibrant young star lives on the silver screen once again.

So in the film, Arthur showing up, not hung, makes a certain sense in underlining an important theme of the movie--that the songs present a real "make believe" response to some real crisis. But if the movie can cast doubt on the possibility of murder of the blind-girl (maybe yes, maybe no), then the movie as a "lark" works. But when in the TV show, the cold blooded murder of the farmer by Eileen is further ignored as a plot device, then we simply end up in the bizarre.

The ambiguity of the 1981 movie (again which Potter wrote) works for thematic development; in the TV program, the blatant cold blooded murder of the farmer by Eileen gives a dimension of realty that cannot be glossed over with song and dance.

I'm surprised people liked the 1978 TV program; its charm started to wear thin. The songs in the 1981 movie seemed more up-beat, more uplifting. The 1978 TV program seemed unwieldy and ultimately a thematic failure with Eileen's cold blooded murder left unresolved. The 1981 Movie seemed tighter, better organized, more linear, and ultimately underlined the point of the land of movies that the songs seemed intended to emphasize: that this is all fake, the movie (the songs) gives immortality--and so Arthur can show up at the end as an emphasis to that point. After all, in the movie, the ambiguity of Arthur murdering the Blind Girl is also real and justifies the ending.

While the TV program fails on one level, it did have a certain bizarre charm and it was nice to hear music from the 1930s. It is available on DVD. The 1981 film PENNIES FROM HEAVEN is a personal favorite and I wanted to see what the original TV series looked like. It was interesting to see what Potter retained, and what was rejected for the movie; in the end, Potter wrote an vastly improved Filmed adaptation of his TV program.

Dennis Potter's Magnum Opus

[brianj-goodinson · 10/10 · 11 May 2020]

Tour de Force performances throughout. Sublime production. BBC rarely does anything like this nowadays. A world away from the dumbed down tripe that is all too common today.

Not my cup of tea.................

[dan.adams · 2/10 · 28 March 2007]

Potter must indeed be an "aquired taste".I found this mini-series really hard going.I recall the 1930s and the traveling salesmen who led a hand to mouth existence,maybe unpleasant memories were evoked? The music held my attention-sort of swung along...I was glad to see Arthur swing in the end also:-)I'm probably not a Hoskins fan.He always seems to try to hard. I thought Cheryl gave a very polished performance .From the moment she appeared the viewer could sense a repressed self bursting to get out! (Quite a surprise when her alter-ego Bonnie Parker emerged,eh!)

I must see the movie version,maybe a change of principal actor might make a difference.It is not a memorable tale in my opinion.

Potter's Pained Musical Drama About Inter-War Sexual And Class Repression Is A True Landmark In British Television

[Afzal-s2007 · 28 September 2007]

In Pennies From Heaven, Dennis Potter evokes, at first sight, a fey, dreamy, even innocent mood of 1930's prewar England through the popular music of the day, such as the song which doubles as the title of this miniseries. These songs were clearly special to Potter, as they were songs of his childhood, and he saw something sublime and almost-mystical in them. Indeed he sang a verse from one of the songs in a lecture shortly before he died. The lyrics seemed to come to his rescue when his own words had failed him.

It is then not surprising that, characters generally being versions of their author, in Pennies From Heaven the songs come out of characters mouths when words fail them. This is a clue to the deeper psychological level and significance of this miniseries, and the songs it celebrates. Arthur Parker (Bob Hoskins, in the role that made his name), the main character in Pennies From Heaven, breaks out in song when he- all too often- cannot express himself. But then he is a travelling song sheet salesman, playing the latest hits to provincial vendors, a fitting career for a man from the working class with repressed creative instincts. His rise to the ranks of the middle class, via marriage, has presented him with a crisis of identity. Linked to this, again via marriage, is the fact that he is a libidinous, distressed wreck with a repressed wife who only confirms his own horror of sex. In short, Arthur Parker is a man in deep crisis.

Clearly, Pennies From Heaven is no musical nostalgia trip back to a better day. Its theme is the connection between repression (of sex and class) and its creative expression, in this case through song, and the source of repression in suppressed libido, linked to class because it (ie sex) is seen as a lower class instinct. The songs are consequently the result of sublimation. What Potter does is view historical characters in a so-called golden age from a modern, psychological and sociological angle. Potter uncovers the effects of repression on people at a time of ignorance in such matters. Repression manifested itself other, mostly deleterious ways. And in Parker's case he ends up being accused of rape and murder.

It seems to me that Potter's ultimate aim, expressed in the core of all his work, is to pull the rug from under the rose-tinted viewer- whose mind has been narrowed by the very English mindset of the belief in the golden past, by revealing the underlying horror of English inter-war society. In this way, Potter is a truth-teller, and Pennies From Heaven is remarkable in that it escapes anachronism with, generally, astoundingly complex characterization and sinuous, involving narrative.

However, Pennies From Heaven does have flaws. There was a misogynistic streak in Potter. He is said to have boasted of sleeping with hundreds of prostitutes. It appears, to an extent, in his work. Female characters are all-too-often seen from a heavily sexual angle. Gemma Craven's Joan, Arthur's wife, suffers from this. However, Parker's other woman, Eileen Everson is a far more atypical female character of the period whose sexuality is far more rounded and complex- though this is perhaps because, unlike Joan, she breaks out of her mould and loses her sense of repression.

There is also the overemphasis of class in Potter's work. Potter was an angry young man of the fifties generation, who brought a left-wing, socialist point-of-view to British Television. The low-level class conflict apparent in his work now looks out of date.

Another flaw is that Pennies From Heaven hasn't dated well in terms of length or pace. Six one hour long parts is far too long, or so it seems to my twenty first century eyes, and Pennies From Heaven would be more suited to a condensed three parts. Moreover, the direction is dull and uninspired, betraying the cheapness and staginess of TV productions in this pre-Brideshead period.

Still, despite these flaws, Pennies From Heaven is a landmark of British Television (an overused term but one which, in this case, is truly applicable), an unprecedented and original historical musical drama.

Enough to Put Anyone Off 1930s Music

[de_niro_2001 · 7 September 2000]

As a teenager I was a great fan of the music of the 1920s and the 1930s. I didn't see this series when it was first shown in the 1970s but I saw it when it was repeated in 1990. I know you shouldn't speak evil of the dead but Dennis Potter was one weird and scary guy. The music is very pleasant. It may be dated but it is still nice to listen to in the same way comedy films of the same era like those of the Marx Brothers, Will Hay and Laurel and Hardy are still fun to watch. Many things in the series are morbid and ghoulish and a bit inconsistent with the music. These scenes where you had men moving their lips to female singers (eg Bob Hoskins mouthing to Elsie Carlisle and in another scene his friends mouthing to the Carlyle Cousins) and vice versa (eg Gemma Craven mouthing to Dan Donovan) annoyed me greatly. As a teenager I built up a collection of 400 78s from that era including some that were featured in the programme like Jack Hylton's "Painting The Clouds With Sunshine" recorded 25/10/29, four days before the Wall Street Crash. I also corresponded with a few old men who had been musicians in these bands including Tiny Winters, the bass player with the Lew Stone band. Tiny played bass on a few of the records that were featured in the series. He said, agreeing with my views, that he didn't like it. Mary Lee, one of the singers with Roy Fox's band, told me she was surprised to see Cheryl Campbell in the series moving her lips to her voice. This series did not gain the approval of the musicians on the 1930s records featured in it or of people who were fans of these bands in the 1930s or of modern day enthusiasts. This was just a depressing play written by a sad lecherous oddball who aimed more at upsetting people than entertaining them.