The Singing Detective (1986)

Directed by

Jon Amiel

Genre

thriller, film noir, musical film, miniseries, drama television series, mystery fiction

Country

United Kingdom

Length

1 season, 6 episodes

Rating

7.5 of 10 from 42 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A hospitalized mystery writer with a severe skin condition hallucinates a film noir detective story. His fantasy world blends with his hospital reality and memories of his past.

tensedarkly comicmelancholiccerebralunsettlingdreamlikeslow-burnvisually lush

What happens

The Singing Detective is a six-part BBC television serial drama, written by Dennis Potter, starring Michael Gambon and directed by Jon Amiel. Its six episodes are "Skin", "Heat", "Lovely Days", "Clues", "Pitter Patter" and "Who Done It". The serial was broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC1 in 1986 on Sunday nights from 16 November to 21 December, with later PBS and cable television showings in the United States. It won a Peabody Award in 1989. It ranks 20th on the British Film Institute's list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes, as voted by industry professionals in 2000. It was included in the 1992 Dennis Potter retrospective at the Museum of Television & Radio and became a permanent addition to the museum's collections in New York and Los Angeles. There was co-production funding from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The series was released on DVD in the US on 15 April 2003 and in the UK on 8 March 2004. It is also available on BBC iPlayer. It was restored in UHD in 2025: this version was first broadcast on BBC Four on the 14 and 21 May before release on iPlayer. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

More like this

• Dead Head (1986)
• The Detective (1985)
• Thirteen Against Fate (1966)
• Karaoke (1996)
• Lost Empires (1986)
• Heart of the City (1986)
• Patrick Melrose (2018)
• Fallen (2004)