Pennies From Heaven is a 1978 BBC television drama

BBC television drama

BBC television dramas have been produced and broadcast since even before the public service company had an officially established television broadcasting network in the United Kingdom...

 serial

Serial (radio and television)

Serials are series of television programs and radio programs that rely on a continuing plot that unfolds in a sequential episode by episode fashion. Serials typically follow main story arcs that span entire television seasons or even the full run of the series, which distinguishes them from...

 written by Dennis Potter

Dennis Potter

Dennis Christopher George Potter was an English dramatist, best known for The Singing Detective. His widely acclaimed television dramas mixed fantasy and reality, the personal and the social. He was particularly fond of using themes and images from popular culture.-Biography:Dennis Potter was born...

. The title is taken from a song of the same name

Pennies from Heaven (song)

"Pennies from Heaven" is a 1936 American popular song with music by Arthur Johnston and words by Johnny Burke. It was introduced by Bing Crosby in the 1936 film of the same name...

 written by Johnny Burke

Johnny Burke (lyricist)

Johnny Burke was a lyricist, widely regarded as one of the finest writers of popular songs in America between the 1920s and 1950s.-Biography:...

 and Arthur Johnston

Arthur Johnston (composer)

Arthur Johnston was a composer known for such works as “Mandy, Make Up Your Mind,” "Pennies From Heaven," and many others...

. It was one of several Potter serials (Casanova

Casanova (1971 TV serial)

Casanova is a British television drama serial, written by television playwright Dennis Potter. Directed by Mark Cullingham and John Glenister, the serial was made by the BBC and screened on the BBC2 network in November and December 1971. It is loosely based on Italian adventurer Giacomo Casanova's...

, The Singing Detective

The Singing Detective

The Singing Detective is a BBC television miniseries written by Dennis Potter, which stars Michael Gambon, and was directed by Jon Amiel. The six episodes were "Skin", "Heat", "Lovely Days", "Clues", "Pitter Patter" and "Who Done It"....

, Lipstick on Your Collar

Lipstick on Your Collar

Lipstick on Your Collar is a 1993 British television serial written by Dennis Potter, originally broadcast on Channel 4 expanded from Potter's earlier play Lay Down Your Arms...

) to mix the reality of the drama with a dark fantasy content, and the earliest of his works where the characters burst into miming to popular 1930s songs.

Synopsis

"Part 1 Down Sunnyside Lane"
In the mid-1930s, Arthur and Joan Parker (Bob Hoskins

Bob Hoskins

Robert William "Bob" Hoskins, Jr. is an English actor known for playing Cockney rough diamonds, psychopaths and gangsters, in films such as The Long Good Friday , and Mona Lisa , and lighter roles in family films such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Hook .- Early life :Hoskins was born in Bury St...

 and Gemma Craven

Gemma Craven

Gemma Craven is an award-winning Irish actress.She is possibly best known for her role in the Irish TV drama The Clinic as Dr...

) are an incompatible married couple living in the London suburbs. Arthur, a travelling sheet music salesman, is a passionate man who is frustrated by his wife's repressed nature. On a car journey to the Gloucester area he picks up ‘the accordion man’, a vagrant (Kenneth Colley

Kenneth Colley

Kenneth Colley is an English actor. A long-time character actor, he came to wider prominence through his role as Admiral Piett in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi....

) who invariably busks on the instrument in the vicinity of the other characters, but the signs of the man's mental illness soon lead Arthur to reject him after they spend several hours together. While trying to persuade a shopkeeper (Arnold Peters) to take some of his goods, Arthur notices a female customer with whom he immediately becomes besotted. Arthur and ‘the accordion man’ both manage to frighten the young woman. Before returning to London, Arthur has sex with Marjorie, a Gloucestershire prostitute (Rosemary Martin

Rosemary Martin

Rosemary Martin was an English actress, best-remembered for her television roles .Other notable TV credits include: Z-Cars, Crown Court, Bill Brand, Coronation Street, Pennies from...

) in the back of his car.

"Part 2 The Sweetest Thing"
Arthur’s bank manager (Peter Cellier

Peter Cellier

Peter Cellier is an English actor who has appeared in film, stage and television. He is perhaps best known for his role as Sir Frank Gordon in Yes Minister and then Yes, Prime Minister in the 1980s.-Biography:...

) refuses to give him a loan. Eileen Everson (Cheryl Campbell

Cheryl Campbell

Cheryl Campbell is an English actor of stage, film and television.-Early years:Cheryl Campbell was educated at Francis Bacon Grammar School, St Albans; London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art...

), the woman he encountered, is a junior school teacher in the Forest of Dean who lives with her widowed coal mining father and two brothers, also miners. Meanwhile, Arthur has returned to the area to trace the woman he is obsessed with. He finally encounters Eileen in a wood near the Everson’s cottage, and returns to their home where Arthur claims his wife has died in a motorcycle accident. He and Eileen eventually make love after the rest of the household have gone to bed.

"Part 3 Easy Come, Easy Go"
The Parker’s marriage briefly revives after Joan smears lipstick on her nipples, and appears to respond to some of her husband’s sexual fantasies. Joan is persuaded to use her inheritance to finance Arthur’s desire to open a record shop. Meanwhile, Eileen has discovered she is pregnant and is forced to give up her job. After unexpectedly meeting a young blind girl (Yolande Palfrey

Yolande Palfrey

Yolande Palfrey was a British actress.She appeared in many BBC programmes including Pennies from Heaven, Measure for Measure, Elizabeth Alone, Wings, Blake's 7 , Crime and Punishment, Nanny, and Doctor Who .She also appeared in The...

) in a field, whom he lusts after under his breath, Arthur reappears at the Everson family home, and his relationship with Eileen revives. The blind girl is raped and murdered, for which Arthur is arrested, but soon released. Eileen moves to London; she has though lost contact with Arthur again.

"Part 4 Better Think Twice"
Almost destitute, Eileen eats little and is in arrears for her cheap hotel room. She meets the superficially sympathetic Tom (Hywel Bennett

Hywel Bennett

Hywel Thomas Bennett is a Welsh film and television actor. Bennett is best known for his recurring title role as James Shelley in the television sitcom Shelley from 1979 to 1984 and its sequel The Return of Shelley from 1988 to 1992....

), a wealthy man with no obvious occupation, and becomes dependent upon him. Arthur opens his new record shop, but he has very few customers, an exception being Tom. The two men get along very well, and Arthur delivers some records to the apartment where Eileen is recovering from an (illegal) abortion paid for by Tom, but the couple are not reunited. Arthur later glimpses Eileen in the pub where she had met Tom, and they leave for the record shop. Unaware of Arthur’s connection to Tom, Eileen explains that the man who paid for her abortion now has a hold over her, and he intends to be her pimp. The couple decide they have to escape from London, and shatter Arthur’s stock of fragile shellac discs.

"Part 5 Painting the Clouds"
A police inspector (Dave King) visits Joan after Arthur’s unexplained disappearance and the destruction of his retail stock. Her comments about Arthur’s sexual tastes, particularly his wish for his wife to move around the house without wearing her knickers, lead the police to make a connection with the murder of the blind girl whose undergarment had been removed. ‘The accordion man’ is haunted by her image and his responsibility for the murder. (It is clear he is not delusional over this event.) He is disorientated when running into Eileen while she is street walking; the dead girl bears a resemblance to her. Arthur is now living off Eileen’s immoral earnings, and she is a client of a Conservative MP, Major Archibald Paxville (Ronald Fraser

Ronald Fraser

Ronald Fraser was an English character actor, who appeared in numerous British films of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s whilst also appearing in many popular TV shows.-Background:...

), who she unsuccessfully attempts to blackmail. ‘The accordion man’ commits suicide, probably by throwing himself off Hammersmith Bridge

Hammersmith Bridge

Hammersmith Bridge is a crossing of the River Thames in west London, just south of the Hammersmith town centre area of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham on the north side of the river. It allows road traffic and pedestrians to cross to Barnes on the south side of the river...

 (which also features ominously in The Singing Detective

The Singing Detective

The Singing Detective is a BBC television miniseries written by Dennis Potter, which stars Michael Gambon, and was directed by Jon Amiel. The six episodes were "Skin", "Heat", "Lovely Days", "Clues", "Pitter Patter" and "Who Done It"....

), and his corpse is discovered. Arthur and Eileen’s false optimism for the future is dashed when they see a newspaper headline indicating he is wanted for murder.

"Part 6 Says My Heart"
Arthur and Eileen are on the run. They spend the night in a barn, but Eileen’s attempt to find help eventually leads her to shoot dead a lonely and deranged farmer (Philip Locke

Philip Locke

Philip Locke was an English actor.He is possibly best known for his role as villainous SPECTRE underling Vargas in the 1965 James Bond film Thunderball...

). They feed and clean themselves in his farmhouse, and scavenge through the man's possessions for money and things they can sell. Leaving the farm Arthur stops, thinking he has seen ‘the accordion man’, but cannot restart their stolen car. Passing police take the couple in for questioning, and Arthur is charged with the murder of the blind girl. In the crown court inconsistencies in Arthur’s various accounts, and a witness unwittingly confusing Arthur’s fixation on Eileen for an obsession with the blind girl lead to his conviction and execution. After Eileen notes the time set for his hanging has passed, Arthur reappears and a happy ending is announced by the two characters.

Overview

Hoskins became an established actor in the UK

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 following his role in this serial. The serial was directed by Piers Haggard

Piers Haggard

Piers Inigo Haggard is a British film and television director, although he has worked mostly in the latter medium.He is the great grandnephew of H...

 and produced by long-time Potter collaborator Kenith Trodd

Kenith Trodd

Kenith Trodd is a British television producer particularly noted for a long association with television playwright Dennis Potter.The son of a crane driver, Trodd was raised in the Christian fundamentalist Plymouth Brethren...

. The series also featured Nigel Havers

Nigel Havers

Nigel Allan Havers is an English actor. He is probably best known for his BAFTA-nominated role as Lord Andrew Lindsay in the 1981 British film Chariots of Fire, and for his role as Dr. Tom Latimer in the British TV comedy series Don't Wait Up...

 as Conrad Baker (the suave salesman); Jenny Logan

Jenny Logan

Jenny Logan is an English actress, trained dancer and singer. Though she played WPC Sally Reed in the TV series Dixon of Dock Green between 1968 and 1969, she is perhaps best known for her appearances as the woman in the television commercial for the carpet freshener Shake'n'Vac which was shot in...

 as Irene (Joan's friend); Freddie Jones

Freddie Jones

Frederick Charles "Freddie" Jones is an English character actor.Jones was born in the town of Longton, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, the son of Ida Elizabeth and Charles Edward Jones. He became an actor after ten years of working as a laboratory assistant with a firm making ceramic products,...

 as Mr.Warner (Eileen's headmaster); Michael Bilton

Michael Bilton

Michael Bilton was an English actor best known for his roles in the British television sitcoms To the Manor Born and Waiting for God....

 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

Peter Bowles

-Early life:Bowles was born in London, England, the son of Sarah Jane and Herbert Reginald Bowles. His father was a chauffeur and butler at a stately home in Warwickshire; but, upon the outbreak of World War II, he was seconded to work as an engineer at Rolls-Royce and moved the family to Nottingham...

 as the Prosecuting Counsel.

Pennies was the last of Potter's television dramas to be filmed in the 'hybrid' format of studio videotape

Videotape

A videotape is a recording of images and sounds on to magnetic tape as opposed to film stock or random access digital media. Videotapes are also used for storing scientific or medical data, such as the data produced by an electrocardiogram...

 and location 16mm film. The production involved six weeks of filming on location, most of it in Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....

, but with selected shooting in Potter's home county of the Forest of Dean

Forest of Dean

The Forest of Dean is a geographical, historical and cultural region in the western part of the county of Gloucestershire, England. The forest is a roughly triangular plateau bounded by the River Wye to the west and north, the River Severn to the south, and the City of Gloucester to the east.The...

 (in Gloucestershire, between the River Severn

River Severn

The River Severn is the longest river in Great Britain, at about , but the second longest on the British Isles, behind the River Shannon. It rises at an altitude of on Plynlimon, Ceredigion near Llanidloes, Powys, in the Cambrian Mountains of mid Wales...

 and the River Wye

River Wye

The River Wye is the fifth-longest river in the UK and for parts of its length forms part of the border between England and Wales. It is important for nature conservation and recreation.-Description:...

). The school where Eileen teaches is the actual 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 March 7 to April 11, 1978, on BBC1

BBC One

BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...

, and first repeated later that year. In the 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

British Film Institute

The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...

 to find the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes

100 Greatest British Television Programmes

The BFI TV 100 is a list compiled in 2000 by the British Film Institute , chosen by a poll of industry professionals, to determine what were the greatest British television programmes of any genre ever to have been screened....

 of the 20th century, Pennies from Heaven was placed at number 21.

Film adaptation

In 1981, the series was adapted as a film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

, starring Steve Martin

Steve Martin

Stephen Glenn "Steve" Martin is an American actor, comedian, writer, playwright, producer, musician and composer....

. Potter adapted his own screenplay, and Herbert Ross

Herbert Ross

Herbert Ross was an American film director, producer, choreographer and actor.-Early life and career:Born Herbert David Ross in Brooklyn, New York, he made his stage debut as Third Witch with a touring company of Macbeth in 1942...

 directed. Potter was nominated for the 1981 Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay

Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay

The Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay is one of the Academy Awards, the most prominent film awards in the United States. It is awarded each year to the writer of a screenplay adapted from another source...

 — according to The Times

The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

, MGM had him rewrite the script thirteen times. By most accounts, the movie was a resounding flop, despite the contributions of Bernadette Peters

Bernadette Peters

Bernadette Peters is an American actress, singer and children's book author from Ozone Park, Queens, New York. Over the course of a career that has spanned five decades, she has starred in musical theatre, films and television, as well as performing in solo concerts and recordings...

 (as Eileen), Christopher Walken

Christopher Walken

Christopher Walken is an American stage and screen actor. He has appeared in more than 100 movies and television shows, including Joe Dirt, Annie Hall, The Deer Hunter, The Prophecy trilogy, The Dogs of War, Sleepy Hollow, Brainstorm, The Dead Zone, A View to a Kill, At Close Range, King of New...

 (as Tom) and Vernel Bagneris

Vernel Bagneris

Vernel Martin Bagneris , playwright, actor, director, singer, and dancer, was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, the third child of Gloria Diaz Bagneris and Lawrence Bagneris Sr. Bagneris’s mother was a housewife and deeply religious woman who “quietly outclassed most people,” and his father was a...

 (as 'the accordion man'). The MGM deal with Potter had multiple ramifications. Said producer Trodd in a 1990 Times article: "Bob [Hoskins] and Cheryl [Campbell] were terribly upset that they weren't considered for the film. I think they still blame Dennis and me in some way, but there was no way to argue the point with MGM.'"

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

Alan Yentob

Alan Yentob is a British television executive and presenter who has worked throughout his career at the BBC.-Early life:...

, the controller of BBC2

BBC Two

BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...

, Trodd was able to buy back the rights from MGM at "a very inconsiderable sum." The BBC promptly rebroadcast Pennies in February 1990.

Legacy

The original television version was released on DVD

DVD

A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 by BBC Worldwide

BBC Worldwide

BBC Worldwide Limited is the wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in 1995. In the year to 31 March 2010 it made a profit of £145m on a turnover of £1.074bn. The company had made a profit of £106m...

 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

Piccadilly

Piccadilly is a major street in central London, running from Hyde Park Corner in the west to Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is completely within the city of Westminster. The street is part of the A4 road, London's second most important western artery. St...

 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

Michael Grade

Michael Ian Grade, Baron Grade of Yarmouth CBE is a British broadcast executive and businessman. He was BBC chairman from 2004 to 2006 and executive chairman of ITV plc from 2007 to 2009.-Early life:...

, chief executive of Channel 4, Alan Yentob

Alan Yentob

Alan Yentob is a British television executive and presenter who has worked throughout his career at the BBC.-Early life:...

, controller of BBC1, and Kenith Trodd, Potter's producer, read a scene from Pennies. [And Trodd] told 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'."

External links

• Entry on British Film Institute's Top 100 television programs
• Encyclopedia of Television
• British Film Institute Screen Online
• "Deep in Dennis Potter's Forest", The American Prospect
  The American Prospect
  The American Prospect is a monthly American political magazine dedicated to American liberalism. Based in Washington, DC, The American Prospect is a journal "of liberal ideas, committed to a just society, an enriched democracy, and effective liberal politics" which focuses on United States politics...
  
  magazine