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THE YEAR
TV editor Brian Donaldson selects his small screen highlights of 2004. We all Me :c have a go at the ratings- unfriendly digtal channels but BBC3 a true DJC'tCQf of British comedy. little Britain and 75 Storeys High returned gloriOusly while Vic 'r.‘ Bob stormed back to excellently odd form 'w'th road comedy Catterick. Julian
Ba rail and Noel Fielding, meanwhile. proved they are still the future of comedy With the TV series of the stage show of the radio programme. The Mighty Boosh.
There was no possible way that Derren Brown could have matched his Russian Roulette antics from 2003 but Séance was so terrifying that the country's cats could be heard puking up their Miaaowrnix through fear. Single documentary of the year was the weird tale of Garry Kasparov and the chess-playing automaton in Game Over.
But in another good year for the Americans (and not solely because Sex and the City. Frasier and Friends all finally called it an overdue day), Deadwood was the where's bollocks. Those fine people at Sky One even sent us Swearengen's Swearbox (Cuss ‘n' Pay) in tribute to the cursing bordello- owner played magnificently by Ian MCShane. For 2p you can have a 'dagnabbit' while it would be well worth the 20p to yell out an impromptu ‘limberdick'. I know I have.
ARENA:
'AiNTiNG THE CLOUDS - A PORTRAIT OF DENNIS POTTER BBC2, Sat 25 Dec, 9.40pm 0000
‘Switch on. Tune in. And grow.‘ Unlike most of his 19605 Oxford-educated generation, Dennis Potter saw the medium of television as a force for creative potential and a system to be embraced rather than naturally denigrated. The tube in the corner took this emotionally vulnerable rural boy toward the heights of creative excellence. Mary Whitehouse and her ilk may not have taken to Potter's output, but the lingering suspicion remains that she simply didn’t care for either his class or his atheist, left-leaning tendencies rather than being genuinely outraged at the uncompromising material he put on the box.
In this excellent documentary (which opens up a BBC4 season of his finest teleplays; which should mean no spot for Blackeyes) we hear from his sister and children for the first time as they recall his upbringing in the Forest of Dean, the aileged abandoning of his roots as he moved away to Oxford and then, with wife in tow, to London, where he is rumoured to have dabbled with over 100 prostitutes.
The story of abuse at the hands of an uncle when Dennis was aged ten gives another key to understanding how some of his art came about. Not only did he revel in the darker nuances of human nature; he always raised the role of the innocent, the frail and the ill above that of the strong, stubborn and powerful. Potter's like may well never be seen again, but this fine profile makes us realise just how lucky we were to have had him in the first place. (Brian Donaldson)
" THE LIST 107