Pennies From Heaven (TV series)

''Pennies from Heaven'' is a 1978 BBC musical drama serial written by Dennis Potter. The title is taken from the song " Pennies from Heaven" written by Johnny Burke and Arthur Johnston. It was one of several Potter serials (another being ''The Singing Detective'') to mix the reality of the drama with a dark fantasy content, and the earliest of his works where the characters burst into extended performances of popular songs.

Overview

Hoskins became an established actor in the United Kingdom following his role in this serial. The serial was directed by Piers Haggard and produced by Potter collaborator Kenith Trodd. The series also featured Nigel Havers as Conrad Baker (the suave salesman), Jenny Logan as Irene (Joan's friend), Freddie Jones as Mr. Warner (Eileen's headmaster), Michael Bilton as Eileen's dad, Will Stamp as the Barman, Tudor Davies as the cafe customer (Davies was also choreographer for the series), and Peter Bowles as the Prosecuting Counsel.

''Pennies'' was the last of Potter's television dramas to be filmed in the 'hybrid' format of studio videotape and location 16 mm film. The production involved six weeks of filming on location, most of it in Oxfordshire, with selected shooting in the Forest of Dean (in Potter's home county of Gloucestershire, between the River Severn and the River Wye). The school where Eileen teaches is the Forest school Potter attended in Berry Hill and the children who populate the school scenes were local children cast as extras. In temporary remission from his chronic condition of psoriatic arthropathy, a rare skin and joints disease that first afflicted him at the age of 24, Potter and his wife Margaret were able to visit the location shoot in Dean.

''Pennies...'' was transmitted in six episodes of approximately 75 minutes each from 7 March to 11 April 1978, on BBC1 and first repeated later that year. In spring of the following year, ''Pennies'' won the British Academy Television Award for Most Original Programme (Hoskins & Campbell were also nominated for BAFTA acting awards). In a 2000 poll of industry professionals conducted by the British Film Institute to find the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes of the 20th century, ''Pennies from Heaven'' was placed at number 21.

Legacy

The original television version was released on DVD by BBC Worldwide in 2004. The first and sixth episodes have an audio commentary from Haggard and Trodd.

Potter's memorial service in November 1994 at St James's Church in Piccadilly began with those in attendance singing "Roll Along Prairie Moon" to the accompaniment of a jazz quintet. Cheryl Campbell and Freddie Jones read their scene in the schoolroom from ''Pennies'': "As Jones stifled his tears, Campbell said: 'Nobody ever ever stops yearning' . . . In a comic interlude Michael Grade, chief executive of Channel 4, Alan Yentob, controller of BBC1, and Kenith Trodd, Potter's producer, read a scene from ''Pennies''. nd Troddtold of their last meeting before the playwright's death from cancer: 'Dennis slugging Courvoisier, fortified by liquid heroin and morphine . . . after an hour he seemed to crumple and he said, 'I do have one very real fear of death. It is that you might get asked to speak at my memorial service'."

Episodes

Film adaptation

In 1981, the series was adapted as a film, starring Steve Martin. Potter adapted his own screenplay, and Herbert Ross directed. Potter was nominated for the 1981 Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay – according to ''The Times'', Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer had him rewrite the script thirteen times. By most accounts, the movie was a resounding flop, despite the contributions of Bernadette Peters (as Eileen), Christopher Walken (as Tom) and Vernel Bagneris (as 'the accordion man'). The MGM deal with Potter had multiple ramifications. Dennis Potter, in a private conversation with Cheryl Campbell, told her that she would be able to play the part of Eileen in the film because her character could absorb an unknown actress when the series was made into an American film. Cheryl declined this offer because it wouldn't be fair to Bob and Gemma and all the others that had contributed so much to the series. The fact that the series would never be seen again due to the rights being sold to MGM was the most upsetting detail of the entire enterprise.

MGM also required Potter to buy back his copyright from the BBC (according to the same 1990 ''Times'' article, Potter paid the BBC "something over $100,000" for the script). In addition, MGM prohibited broadcast of the BBC's own production of ''Pennies'' for approximately ten years. In 1989 or thereabouts, at the prompting of Alan Yentob, the controller of BBC2, Trodd was able to buy back the rights from MGM at "a very inconsiderable sum." The BBC promptly rebroadcast ''Pennies'' in February 1990.

See also

* Al Bowlly, song composer used extensively throughout the series.

References

Further reading

*

External links

*
*

Entry
on British Film Institute's Top 100 television programs



British Film Institute Screen Online

"Deep in Dennis Potter's Forest"
''The American Prospect'' magazine

{{DennisPotter

1978 British television series debuts
1978 British television series endings
1970s British drama television series
BBC television dramas
BBC television musicals
1970s British television miniseries
Jukebox musicals
British musical television series
Television shows written by Dennis Potter
English-language television shows
Television series set in the 1930s