Editing Dennis Potter (section)

==Early career==
Potter began his career as a journalist with the ''[[Daily Herald (United Kingdom)|Daily Herald]]''.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Lawson |first=Mark |date=8 June 1994 |title=Obituary: Dennis Potter |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-dennis-potter-1421167.html |access-date=26 July 2024 |work=The Independent}}</ref>

Potter's first non-fiction work, ''The Glittering Coffin'', was published by the [[Victor Gollancz|Gollancz Press]] in 1960. The book was a rumination on the changing face of England in the prosperity following the end of the war years. It was followed by ''The Changing Forest: Life in the Forest of Dean Today'' (1962), which was based on the "Between Two Rivers" documentary. This book is a study of class and social mobility that demonstrates an early fascination with the effects of the mass media on British cultural life.

He soon returned to television. ''Daily Herald'' journalist [[David Nathan (journalist)|David Nathan]] persuaded Potter to collaborate with him on sketches for ''[[That Was the Week That Was]]''. Their first piece was used in the edition of 5 January 1963.<ref>Humphrey Carpenter ''That Was Satire That Was: The Satire Boom in the 1960s'', London, 2000, p. 232</ref>

Potter stood as the [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]] candidate for [[East Hertfordshire (UK Parliament constituency)|Hertfordshire East]], a safe [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative Party]] seat, in the [[1964 United Kingdom general election|1964 general election]] against the incumbent [[Derek Walker-Smith, Baron Broxbourne|Derek Walker-Smith]]. By the end of the unsuccessful campaign, he claimed that he was so disillusioned with party politics he did not even vote for himself. Potter now embarked on work as a television playwright. He had begun to suffer in 1962 from a condition known as [[psoriatic arthropathy]] causing [[arthritis]] to develop in his joints as well as affecting his skin with [[psoriasis]]. It also made futile any attempt to follow a conventional career path.