Dennis Potter
'You can open your veins on television more easily than anywhere. It's the last stronghold for the individualist writer.'
Over the last 20 years, Dennis Potter has established himself as not only television's most celebrated playwright but also its most outspoken.
His powerful and daring plays from Stand Up
Nigel Barton , written after he stood for Parliament in 1964, through Pennies from Heaven, to the triumph of The Singing Detective have provoked the most extreme reactions both for and against.
Above all, Potter takes a moral position - he describes himself as a religious dramatist. Throughout his work he mines recurring themes and obsessions - his childhood in the Forest of Dean, illness, his sense of the self, sex, the techniques of television itself.
As an introduction to a season of Dennis Potter plays, starting tomorrow, here's a second chance to see the Arena interview in which he discusses the feelings and attitudes that motivate him. Research JANE BYWATERS Producer ANTHONY WALL