Search - The Singing Detective on DVD

Moving, Haunting, Disturbing, Exhilarating!

Ed Packer | Suffern, New York USA | 10/16/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I have not been able to stop thinking or talking about this series since I watched it. I made a ritual out of watching one episode every Friday night for six consecutive weeks, and found myself barely able to wait from one week to the next. The way Potter weaves the different elements of the story into a cohesive whole is simply magical. All of the superlatives in the other reviews are spot-on. This is a masterpiece, plain and simple.
Funny, heartbreaking, mesmerizing...I could go on and on. The cast is splendid (JoAnne Whalley is a knockout), but it's Michael Gambon who steals the show. Due to the character's illness, he moves very little, and so must rely on his incredibly expressive eyes and marvelous voice to convey Marlowe's feelings. No other actor comes close to the Great Gambon. Just watching him try to light a cigarette is excruciating. I'm almost afraid to see the Mel Gibson / Robert Downey film version, for fear that I will be sorely disappointed. Oh well, I always have my boxed set. In fact, I'm about to start my Friday ritual all over again, this time with my wife watching as well. I envy her- she's about to have a marvelous experience.
Buy this set, you will enjoy it for the rest of your days..."

Brilliant, provocative and extremely realistic

Sean McLinden | Sewickley, PA United States | 10/04/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It would be hard to add much substance to the many glowing reviews of this series so I will address my comments to those who might be more strongly influenced by the negative reviews.

This is a story about a man who is tortured by his past and who cannot help but associate the appearance of his skin with the sins he feels he has committed. The not so subtle association between the uncleanliness of the skin and of the soul is, of course of "Biblical" proportions (lepers were considered sinners), but Potter's take on this is far from trite.

What many have found offensive about the presentation is, ironically, something that I encounter with regularity in medical practice. The psychotic imagery brought on by medication is not uncommon, nor is the humiliation of a patient who finds his or her self at the mercy of the system, unable to control their most personal of bodily functions. Is it offensive? Too people too polite to discuss such things. But we are viewing the experience not through the eyes of the system, but through the eyes of the patient who wanders in and out of reality and is often unable to distinguish between them.

The ward system of care (many patients in the same room) has all but disappeared in the US with the Veteran's Administration hospitals being one example of the holdover. In such settings, nothing that happens to you is completely private; not your appearance nor your feelings nor your communications with others. Worse, Marlowe's disease is on the outside, for all to see. The disgust his ward mates (and the audience) feels is a reflection of the prejudices we have against people with physical deformities.

Such prejudices are natural, of course. The revulsion that we sometimes feel at the sickness of another is part of a primitive reflex that prompts us to avoid whatever it is that the sick person has encountered. Part of the process of caring for others involves learning to suspend that revulsion. But what of a man who is offended by himself? How does he care for himself?

Marlowe is a modern Job, brought up with an intense faith in and love of God who finds his faith challenged by the events in his life. Were this drama not infused with the thoughts and feelings of Potter's own experiences, it might have been considered sensational and certainly some have regarded it as unnecessarily grotesque and explicit.

But if we allow ourselves to suspend our prejudices and view this work as a uniquely frank and revealing look at a real-person's experiences as told through his fictional character, then what we see is not only a story of profound complexity, but also a peek at the health care system as it is sometimes seen by patients.

As a physician, I frequently take exception to the portrayal of health care on TV, especially the soap opera like characterizations of ER and Chicago Hope. I first saw the Singing Detective as I was entering medical practice and was struck by how closely it resonated with my experiences.

If one is to be shocked or disgusted by this film, be shocked and disgusted by the way that disease and often treatment leaves patients stripped of their privacy and dignity. If one is to be disgusted by this film, be disgusted by the perverse way in which the teacher uses the childrens' fear of God as a way to exact a confession.

What is offensive is not what is portrayed, but rather, what it tells us about how we, as a people, sometimes act.

At one point in the story, Marlowe tells Dr. Gibbon: "I sat at my desk, perjurer, charlatan, and watched and listened and watched and listened as one after another they nailed that backward lad hands and feet to my story. I have not seriously doubted since that afternoon that any lie will receive almost instant corroboration and almost instant collaboration if the maintenance of it results in the public enjoyment of someone else's pain, someone else's humiliation."

In German, there is a word for this, so recognized it is as a common phenomenon.

At one point Marlowe asks a nurse about a patient who has died (and, whose death, Marlowe believes, was caused in part by Marlowe's own feelings about the patient). The nurse replies "We don't talk about these things, do we?" to which Marlowe retorts, "Why not? It is the operating assumption, here, that none of us are mortal."

In essence Marlowe is questioning the rule that there are "some things that polite people don't talk about" insofar as disease and death are concerned. But to the patient these, and other things, assume critical importance. Rarely has a work of fiction so accurately captured those issues from the perspective of the diseased rather than the healer. As he loses hope of recovery he begins to confront the daemons of his life in all their ugliness.

It is rare, indeed, to be able to watch that process through the eyes of the patient."