Karaoke 1996 Written by Dennis Potter and directed by Renny Rye. A BBC & Channel 4 co-production. Dennis Potter was dying of pancreatic cancer during the writing and production of the TV productions.
Albert Finny plays Daniel Feeld, he's a well known and well paid writer, he writes books, plays and TV programs. He likes to drink, lately he's been feeling poorly. Daniel's out at a restaurant with his agent Ben. Daniel thinks he hears people at another table speaking lines from his as yet unreleased TV program Karaoke. It's being edited as Daniel and Ben have a drink. Trouble is, the table is too far away, Ben isn't hearing any lines, neither is Anna, the producer on Karaoke who just dropped by for a chat. Daniel drinks more and his agent gives him a ride home. Daniel gets out of the car, goes for another drink and collapses in the bar.
Daniel's taken to hospital. While there he learns there's something seriously wrong with him. He'd better get his house in order. Daniel decides to write a play set in the future. We meet a bunch of people over the 4 hours, several stories are revealed, small incidents give Daniel his end plans. He helps some people and punishes a really bad man. Couldn't ask for a better ending.
There's a good cast, the ones I knew were Albert Finney, Roy Rudd. Richard E Grant, Keeley Hawes, Hywel Bennett, Saffron Burroughs, Ian McDiarmid, Liz Smith, Alison Steadman, Julie Christie, Fay Ripley and Ewan MaGregor. It's a good production with plenty of interesting bits going on. The musical numbers were worked in well and there's a nice version of Pennies From Heaven near the end.
Cold Lazarus 1996 Written by Dennis Potter and directed by Renny Rye. Each story was aired as 4 episodes, each about an hour.
In 2370 some scientists are working in a bio-lab in Britain. They're trying to access the memories of Daniel Feeld's long frozen brain. They've managed to retrieve some memories but with great cost. The company that owns the lab is headed by a horrible woman called Martina, she's tightfisted with her cash and vindictive when you go over budget. She's not happy with the lab spending so much money on some bio products and cuts it's budget. A media company owner called David is thinking he needs to steal the head and peddle the memories as reality TV. He approaches the head of the lab and she's interested in his money. David's offering a lot of cash.
The Britain of the future has a heavily damaged landscape with armed guards guarding buildings. Conglomerates run things and the police are rather fascist. Citizen's stay home and experience virtual reality. There's a resistance groups called RoN, they want Reality or Nothing. They're disruptive and murderous. One of people in the lab is in the group. There's a good amount of time spent on the RoN part of the story. I found it the least interesting bit of the story.
The head is stolen and installed in David's lab. Lots of money and equipment open up more memories. Things go south after that. Most of the lab staff don't make it to the end of the story. It's a tough world in the future. There's a good bit of story near the end pondering the ethical side of revealing a person's memories to the general public as entertainment.
Besides Albert Finney I knew some of the cast, Frances de la Tour, Ciarán Hinds, Henry Goodman, Donald Sumpter and Rob Brydon as a head in a jar.
I enjoyed both stories. I hadn't seen them before. Not sure if I'd watch them again.
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