Follow the Yellow Brick Road
Follow the Yellow Brick Road | |
---|---|
Written by | Dennis Potter |
Directed by | Alan Bridges |
Starring | Denholm Elliott Billie Whitelaw Richard Vernon Bernard Hepton Dennis Waterman Michele Dotrice |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Production | |
Producer | Roderick Graham |
Running time | 69 minutes |
Original release | |
Network | BBC 2 |
Release | 4 July 1972 |
Follow the Yellow Brick Road is a
Synopsis
Jack Black is a disturbed actor who believes himself to be trapped in a television play, followed around by an invisible camera. Having sought the help of an
Leaving the psychiatrist's surgery he encounters his wife, who persuades him to go somewhere where they can talk. They head to Barnes Common where Jack becomes violent and, convinced the camera is on him again (he acted in a dog food commercial there), decides to disrupt the narrative by running Judy over with her car. In an attempt to restore some 'goodness' into the plot he goes to Colin's flat to see his young wife Veronica, who mistakes his declarations of love as a sexual advance and invites him to seduce her. At an appointment the next day (junior) Doctor Bilson prescribes Jack with some different drugs to alleviate his paranoia. Jack leaves the hospital and climbs into a car with his wife Judy – and the whole play ends with "Jack's next job (in reality or imagination) ... fronting a presentation"[1] for his newly prescribed drugs.
Principal cast
- Denholm Elliott as Jack Black
- Billie Whitelaw as Judy Black
- Richard Vernon as Doctor Whitman
- Bernard Hepton as Colin Sands
- Dennis Waterman as Doctor Bilson
- Michele Dotrice as Veronica Sands
Structure and themes
The action of the play is broken up by two mock television commercials for breakfast cereal ("Krispy Krunch") and dog food ("Waggytail Din-Din"): both of which feature Denholm Elliott's character Jack Black acting, and justify his claim to the psychiatrist that the adverts present an idealistic and "pure" world view. As Jack's mental health deteriorates throughout the course of the play, the voiceovers and dialogue featured in these commercials start to form an ironic commentary into his condition. The Krispy Krunch commercial, which originally sees Jack going to the kitchen for a midnight snack, transforms into a recollection of how he stumbled upon his wife in bed with his agent, while extracts from the Waggytail Din-Din advert are intercut with Veronica's misunderstanding of Jack's intention as she invites him to seduce her ("Dogs can't live without it!"). The play's final turning in on itself as one long commercial for tranquillisers[2] sees Jack dressed in a medic's white coat in a television studio, quoting the "Epistle of St Paul to the Philippians". Potter uses these commercials as a wider metaphor for popular culture becoming an inheritor of scripture; this is a device he explores in several plays, all of which take an essentially religious structure (see below).
A major theme of the play is the exploration of individual choice in the face of a seemingly
Intertextuality
Other Potter works
Potter incorporated several scenes from Follow the Yellow Brick Road into his first novel Hide and Seek (1973), which also features a central protagonist (in this case 'Daniel Miller') who becomes aware of himself as a character in a novel and seeks to liberate himself from the hands of the author. In this work The Author also derides his agent, clearly based on Clive Goodwin, Potter's own agent at this time, in both works.
Cultural references
As a means of underlining Jack's distaste for sex, Potter borrows his character's name from the cobbler in Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood (1954);[2] in Thomas' poem, Black finds the sexual habits of the young couples in the eponymous Welsh town disgusting and dreams of frightening them.
The references to The Wizard of Oz (both
Broadcast and reception
The play was first broadcast on BBC 2 on 4 July 1972 and received mixed reviews[5] with critics missing the religious theme.[3] Potter biographer Humphrey Carpenter thought that actor Denholm Elliott and director Alan Bridges "treated it as light comedy, skating over its psychological agonies", but recognised that Potter had "reached a peak" with this work.[5] It received repeat broadcasts in 1987 (on BBC2) and 2005 (BBC Four) as part of Dennis Potter seasons.
See also
- Double Dare
- Pennies from Heaven
- Karaoke
References
Other sources
- Graham Fuller (Ed.), Potter on Potter; 1993
- Nigel Williams (Ed.), Arena: Painting the Clouds; 2005