Editing Dennis Potter (section)

==Style and themes==
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Potter's work is known for its use of non-naturalistic devices. These include the extensive use of [[Flashback (narrative)|flashback]] and [[Nonlinear narrative|nonlinear]] plot structure (''Casanova''; ''Late Call''), [[breaking the fourth wall|direct to camera address]] (''Vote, Vote, Vote for Nigel Barton'') and works where "the child is father to the man", in which he used adult actors to play children (''Stand Up, Nigel Barton''; ''Blue Remembered Hills''). The '[[lip-sync]]' technique he developed for his "serials with songs" (''Pennies from Heaven''; ''The Singing Detective'' and ''Lipstick on Your Collar'') is perhaps the best known of the Potter trademarks. They are frequently used in works where the line between fantasy and reality becomes blurred, often as a result of the influence of popular culture (Willie, the [[Wild West]] obsessive played by [[Hywel Bennett]] in ''Where the Buffalo Roam'') or from a character's apparent awareness of their status as a pawn in the hands of an omniscient author (the actor Jack Black (Denholm Elliott) in ''[[Follow the Yellow Brick Road]]'' first broadcast in 1972).

Potter's pioneering method of using music in his work emerged when developing ''Pennies from Heaven'' (1978), one of his biggest successes. He asked actors to mime along to period songs. "Potter tried out the concept himself by lip-syncing to old songs while looking into a mirror. Potter himself once revealed that, working on harnessing songs in his plays, he was most productive 'at night, with old [[Al Bowlly]] records playing in the background'".<ref>The Independent, 7 January 2005, previewing ''Arena – Dennis Potter:It's in the Songs! It's in the Songs!'' BBC Four</ref> Potter had previously experimented with Bowlly's voice in ''[[Moonlight on the Highway]]'' (1969).

Potter's characters are frequently "doubled up"; either by [[Doppelgänger]], using the same actor to play two roles ([[Kika Markham]] as the actress and the escort in ''[[Double Dare (play)|Double Dare]]''; [[Norman Rossington]] as Lorenzo the gaoler and the English traveller in ''Casanova'') or two actors whose characters' destinies and personalities appear linked (Bob Hoskins and [[Kenneth Colley]] as Arthur and the accordion man in ''Pennies from Heaven''; Rufus ([[Christian Rodska]]) and Gina the bear in ''[[A Beast With Two Backs]]'').

A motif in Potter's writing is the concept of betrayal and this takes many forms in his plays. Sometimes it is personal (''Stand Up, Nigel Barton''), political (''Traitor''; ''[[Cold Lazarus]]'') and other times it is sexual (''A Beast With Two Backs''; ''[[Brimstone and Treacle]]''). In ''Potter on Potter'', published as part of [[Faber and Faber]]'s series on [[auteur]]s, Potter told editor Graham Fuller that all forms of betrayal presented in literature are essentially religious and based on [[Fall of Man|"the old, old story"]]; this is evoked in a number of works, from the use of popular songs in ''Pennies from Heaven'' to Potter's [[Gnosticism|gnostic]] retelling of [[Jesus]]' final days in ''Son of Man''.

The device of a disruptive outsider entering a claustrophobic environment is another theme. In plays where this occurs, the outsider will commit some apparently liberating act of evil (rape in ''Brimstone and Treacle'') or violence (murder in ''[[Shaggy Dog (play)|Shaggy Dog]]'') that gives physical expression to the un-sublimated desires of the characters in that setting.<ref>Michael Billington and Dennis Potter [https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/may/15/dennis-potter-nostalgic-rightwing-england "Dennis Potter: there is a nostalgic, right wing impulse in England"], ''The Guardian'', 2015 (reprint of 1979 radio interview)</ref> While these more malevolent visitors are often supernatural beings (''Angels Are So Few''), intelligence agents (''[[Blade on the Feather]]'') or even figments of their host's imagination (''Schmoedipus''), there are also—rare—instances of benign visitors whose presence resolves personal conflicts rather than exploits them (''Joe's Ark''; ''[[Where Adam Stood]]'').