Pennies from Heaven

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.