Art from Heaven

Press, 11 August 1979, Page 13

Art from Heaven

By

A. K. GRANT

Ever since “Voate, Vote, Vote for Nigel Barton’’ and “Stand Up, Nigel Barton” were screened in Britain in 1965, Dennis Potter has been both the maestro and the enfant terrible of British television playwriting. He has confirmed this dual reputation and crowned his reputation to date with the brilliant “Pennies From Heaven,”the third part of which was screened on Television One on Thursday night. Most of the time television is simply a form of electronic tranquilliser, but on occasions it proves to be a vehicle for the transmission of art, and “Pennies from Heaven” is one such occasion. For most people, what probably stands out about the programme is the inspired use of the songs of

the Thirties, and I will come back to that later, but one must also praise the uniformly excellent acting, building on the work of an inspired casting director. Every face seems not only perfect for (he character it portrays, but also seems Jo express an aspect of the Thirties. Potter is obviously

strongly drawn to that decade despite, or perhaps because of, the grim nature of the lives people led then, and his feel for the period suffuses the work. His characters live their rather desperate lives against a background of Depression both economic and spiritual, but Life nevertheless i surges

through them, and Potter seems to be commenting on the human capacity to make a mess of things and the best of things, both at the same time. For any light-music buff the show is indeed heaven-sent. One hears one’s favourite standards plus a lot of ditties one had not come across before.

The use of the songs is brilliantly apposite to action and mood, and there is a sense in which the songs are really the characters of the play. Potter is saying, if I comprehend him correctly, that although the words of fie songs may occasionally be hackneyed and at their best never rise to the level of great poetry,

nevertheless these songs were Art with a capital A for the people who lived during the decade in which they were produced: they expressed moods, sentiments and emotions which the people could not express for them-* selves, and they helped to form the way the people felt about their lives — which is what Art with a capital A is supposed to do. Dennis Potter suffers from some ghastly debilitating condition which means that he spends most of his life in great pain. We can only be grateful that he rises above it sufficiently often to create works which give such pleasure. His play is about the Thirties, but it will certainly be one of the things people remember about the Seventies, ~ __

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