Non-naturalism and nostalgia in Dennis Potter's Blue Remembered Hills

Résumé En

Dennis Potter was a celebrated television dramatist, author and screenwriter. To understand his place in post-war British society and popular culture, it is necessary to first apprehend the particular social and institutional context within which his career thrived. It might seem unusual today for a writer of television drama to become a celebrated auteur in the way one might associate with film directors. Yet the ascendancy of the television dramatist as the ultimate artist in the medium survived at least as long as the television play, a hybrid form distinct from cinema, the TV movie and the television serial, before being cannibalized by all three. Blue Remembered Hills, originally broadcast on the BBC in 1979, dates from a pivotal moment when the television play began to evolve away from its theatrical origins. This paper looks at how the play embodies the institutional and cultural transformations of the period, as well as the authors’ reflections on the myths of childhood and naturalistic representation.