Blackeyes (TV Series)
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

''Blackeyes'' is a
BBC television BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1 January 1927. It p ...
miniseries first broadcast in 1989, written and directed by
Dennis Potter Dennis Christopher George Potter (17 May 1935 – 7 June 1994) was an English television dramatist, screenwriter and journalist. He is best known for his BBC television serials '' Pennies from Heaven'' (1978) and '' The Singing Detective'' ...
. It was adapted from Potter's novel of the same name.


Premise and initial broadcast

Broadcast as four 50-minute episodes, first screened weekly from 29 November 1989 to 20 December 1989 on Britain's
BBC2 BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's second flagship channel, and it covers a wide range of subject matter, incorporating genres such as comedy, drama and ...
channel, ''Blackeyes'' starred
Gina Bellman Gina Bellman (born 10 July 1966) is a New Zealand-born British actress. She played grifter Sophie Devereaux in the TNT (U.S. TV network), TNT television series ''Leverage (American TV series), Leverage'' (2008-2012) and its Amazon Freevee reviva ...
as the title character, an attractive model, with
Michael Gough Francis Michael Gough ( ; 23 November 1916 – 17 March 2011) was a British actor who made more than 150 film and television appearances. He is known for his roles in the Hammer horror films from 1958, with his first role as Sir Arthur Holmwoo ...
in a key role as her uncle. Potter described the series's theme as the
objectification In social philosophy, objectification is the act of treating a person as an object or a thing. Sexual objectification, the act of treating a person as a mere object of sexual desire, is a subset of objectification, as is self-objectification, th ...
of "young and attractive women as consumer goods in a way that brutalises both sexes".


Production

Following the successes of ''
The Singing Detective ''The Singing Detective'' is a six-part BBC television serial drama, written by Dennis Potter, starring Michael Gambon and directed by Jon Amiel. Its six episodes are "Skin", "Heat", "Lovely Days", "Clues", "Pitter Patter" and "Who Done It". ...
'' and '' Christabel'', the
BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
awarded a budget of £2.4 million to the production of ''Blackeyes''. It was shot on 35 mm film and took 18 months to complete. Despite illness, Potter opted to direct the series, the only time he did this for TV. He had considered both
Jon Amiel Jon Amiel (born 20 May 1948) is an English director who has worked in film and television in both the UK and the US. After receiving a BAFTA Award nomination for the BBC series ''The Singing Detective'' (1986), he went on to direct films, inclu ...
and
Nicolas Roeg Nicolas Jack Roeg ( ; 15 August 1928 – 23 November 2018) was an English film director and cinematographer, best known for directing ''Performance (film), Performance'' (1970), ''Walkabout (film), Walkabout'' (1971), ''Don't Look Now'' (1973) ...
, both recent collaborators, for the job. He would consider it a mistake to direct the serial himself. In 2007 an article in ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' written by Jon Wilde revealed that the journalist had been the inspiration for the character of Mark Wilsher, "an insufferably smug hack" in episode 2.


Press coverage before broadcast

The premiere of the series was eagerly anticipated. Six months before screening it was promoted on the cover of '' The Listener'' with an image of Gina Bellman in role as the title character and the caption "Potter's Dream - Beyond The Singing Detective". James Saynor, the magazine's sub-editor at the time, wrote inside of Potter's ambitious desire to subvert the norms of film grammar in the series following an on-set interview with the fledgling director. In the lead-up to broadcast Potter promoted the series by appearing on TV chat-show Saturday Matters with Sue Lawley and was interviewed in newspapers such as
New Statesman ''The New Statesman'' (known from 1931 to 1964 as the ''New Statesman and Nation'') is a British political and cultural news magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first c ...
and
The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. First published in 1791, it is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper. In 1993 it was acquired by Guardian Media Group Limited, and operated as a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' ...
. Each time he made reference to "falling in love with Blackeyes", making clear how personal this project was to him. A press screening of the series on 22 November provoked negative responses in several of the journalists and reviewers present. It was described in previews as "soft porn". and "a simple turn-on for male viewers". Some journalists attacked Potter in their reports: in ''City Limits'' Deborah Orr described him as "unpleasant", Maria Lexton condemned him in ''Time Out'' as "a very sick man... ith atwisted attitude to women and fucking" and in the
Evening Standard The ''London Standard'', formerly the ''Evening Standard'' (1904–2024) and originally ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), is a long-established regional newspaper published weekly and distributed free newspaper, free of charge in London, Engl ...
he was dismissed as "a dirty old man". The
Daily Mirror The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily Tabloid journalism, tabloid newspaper. Founded in 1903, it is part of Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), which is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the tit ...
created a new nickname for Potter when its front-page headline asked, "All clever stuff - Or just Dirty, Den?" Sally Payne summed up the tension between Potter's intentions and their execution in the
Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of N ...
, "My gut feeling was distinct unease which verged on outrage the more I thought about it. I became convinced that Potter was guilty of the crime he was condemning."


Reception


Initial responses

Following transmission, favourable comments were offered by the reviewers of several broadsheets.
Mark Lawson Mark Gerard Lawson is an English journalist, broadcaster and author. Specialising in culture and the arts, he is best known for presenting the flagship BBC Radio 4 arts programme '' Front Row'' between 1998 and 2014. He is also a '' Guardian'' ...
applauded Potter's willingness to take risks, comparing him to novelist
Martin Amis Sir Martin Louis Amis (25 August 1949 – 19 May 2023) was an English novelist, essayist, memoirist, screenwriter and critic. He is best known for his novels ''Money'' (1984) and '' London Fields'' (1989). He received the James Tait Black Mem ...
, while Christopher Tookey linked Potter to
August Strindberg Johan August Strindberg (; ; 22 January 184914 May 1912) was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist, and painter.Lane (1998), 1040. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg wrote more than 60 pla ...
and
Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish writer, essayist, satirist, and Anglican cleric. In 1713, he became the Dean (Christianity), dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, and was given the sobriquet "Dean Swi ...
and described ''Blackeyes'' as possibly "the most interesting, original and honest work he's done since ''Pennies from Heaven''". The majority of the British press reacted negatively to the series, many highlighting the amount of sex and nudity as cause for complaint. The ''
Sunday Express The ''Daily Express'' is a national daily United Kingdom middle-market newspaper printed in tabloid format. Published in London, it is the flagship of Express Newspapers, owned by publisher Reach plc. It was first published as a broadsheet ...
'' called it "the world's most complicated porn film" fit for "the wastebin", the ''Sunday Times'' reasserted its antipathy to ''Blackeyes'' at the series' conclusion, summing it up as "Porno Twaddle". The series was also attacked for being "immensely boring" in ''
The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...
''. ''Blackeyes'' was the subject of mocking cartoons in several tabloids, again focusing on the nudity. The
Daily Mirror The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily Tabloid journalism, tabloid newspaper. Founded in 1903, it is part of Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), which is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the tit ...
featured a cartoon by Charles Griffin depicting a naked Potter tapping out a script at his desk with a caricatured Bellman (also naked) sitting alongside his typewriter. The couple are being interrupted by campaigner
Mary Whitehouse Constance Mary Whitehouse (; 13 June 1910 – 23 November 2001) was a British teacher and conservative activist. She campaigned against social liberalism and the mainstream British media, both of which she accused of encouraging a more permis ...
who is waving her fist at the writer and exclaiming, "Potter! I'll give you flamin' Blackeyes!" The Daily Star presented an image of a BBC Drama department office in which all the staff were going about their business either naked or in underwear. A bank of TV screens show titles such as 'Brown Eyes', 'Square Eyes' and 'Slant Eyes' while another reads 'Blackeyes - Get em off'. A man dressed in black lingerie is sitting beside bundles of letters labelled 'Complaints' and speaking into a phone saying, "OK, so a girl walks about half-naked - is that so unusual?" No stranger to controversy, Potter was stunned by the level of press hostility and was particularly saddened at the way he was labelled with nicknames such as "Dirty Den" and "Television's Mr Filth". He described himself as being "in the pit of a real depression" and upset by the personal comments made about him in ''City Limits'' and ''Time Out''. In a Radio 2 interview he suggested his writing career might be at an end. The criticisms also enabled Potter to speak directly about his own experience of child abuse, which he had attempted to address in ''Blackeyes'', an element of the series that had seemingly been overlooked by its critics: "If you listen to the voice-over n the last episodeyou'll see it's very clear why hild abusestrikes my heart. I've never been able to speak directly about it - no one who's had such an experience has ever been able to speak about it except obliquely. It sits there and makes me sweat even now". The ''Sunday Telegraph'' acknowledged Potter's childhood experience as "the source of the harrowing scene in the last episode". The sequence involves the character of Maurice Kingsley about to sexually abuse his niece Jessica until Potter's voice-over interrupts: "No, you'll have to imagine the rest if you must... the snake in his hand has become the worm in her soul. Recollections of abuse - my god - they're hard to deal with - even though I try... There are times when the pen in your hand becomes... becomes - yes - a knife in someone else's".


Later reactions

In 1993 Potter summed up the initial press reaction to ''Blackeyes'' by calling it "a tide of polemical abuse of such huge proportions in the English tabloids that it was almost proof I was stepping on the right nerves, if not totally in the right way". A few years' removed from the project he admitted responsibility for some of the negative reaction, saying, "there were too many strands, and the style, which is very alienating, it was so successful it alienated every fucking person who ever saw it!" and "I did fail. If there's such universal rejection and opposition and incomprehension then it's extremely likely that it was either badly written, or badly done, or both."


Critical analysis

Graham Fuller describes ''Blackeyes'' as "a complex analysis of institutionalized sexism" and an "abstruse but in many ways extremely courageous post-feminist revenge thriller" in his 1993 book ''Potter on Potter'', a collection of interviews with the writer. Acknowledging the original press reaction, he describes the series as being "condemned for feeding the very sickness it claimed to be diagnosing" and defends Potter by asserting that the programme's explicit scenes were "unintended to be titillating to viewers who would elect to see them that way". Twenty years later Fuller continues to challenge the tabloid view of ''Blackeyes'' in ''
Sight & Sound ''Sight and Sound'' (formerly written ''Sight & Sound'') is a monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute (BFI). Since 1952, it has conducted the well-known decennial ''Sight and Sound'' Poll of the Greatest Films of All Time. ...
'', "Advertising is the arena in which ''Blackeyes'' throws herself to the lions...auditioning in a bikini for salivating ad executives... he scene isintercut with fragmented moments from the history of Jessica Kingsley...as a sexual-abuse victim who eventually drowns herself - how could Potter not have been taken seriously?" Sergio Angelini calls ''Blackeyes'' "a deliberately uncomfortable, humorous, densely imagined, frequently powerful if imperfect work, one that practically vanished after its original airing but which, now that its shock value has long been superseded, needs to be re-assessed by a new generation". It was repeated multiple times on the now-defunct channels UK Drama and UK Arena in the late 90s and early 00s but remains unreleased on DVD or Blu-ray.


Cast

*
Gina Bellman Gina Bellman (born 10 July 1966) is a New Zealand-born British actress. She played grifter Sophie Devereaux in the TNT (U.S. TV network), TNT television series ''Leverage (American TV series), Leverage'' (2008-2012) and its Amazon Freevee reviva ...
as Blackeyes *
Michael Gough Francis Michael Gough ( ; 23 November 1916 – 17 March 2011) was a British actor who made more than 150 film and television appearances. He is known for his roles in the Hammer horror films from 1958, with his first role as Sir Arthur Holmwoo ...
as Maurice James Kingsley * Carol Royle as Jessica *
Nigel Planer Nigel George Planer (born 22 February 1953) is a British actor, writer and musician. His television credits include playing Neil in the sitcom '' The Young Ones'' and Ralph Filthy in the sitcom '' Filthy Rich & Catflap'', as well as narrating th ...
as Jeff *
John Shrapnel John Morley Shrapnel (27 April 1942 – 14 February 2020) was an English actor. He is known mainly for his stage work with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre in the United Kingdom and for his many television appearances. On ...
as Detective Blake *
Colin Jeavons Colin Abel Jeavons (born 20 October 1929) is a British retired actor and TV presenter. He is known for his character roles and has worked in theatre, television and film, especially in literary adaptations and roles related to the works of Char ...
as Jamieson * Charles Gray as Sebastian *
Dennis Potter Dennis Christopher George Potter (17 May 1935 – 7 June 1994) was an English television dramatist, screenwriter and journalist. He is best known for his BBC television serials '' Pennies from Heaven'' (1978) and '' The Singing Detective'' ...
as Narrator (uncredited) * Louise Germaine as Model (uncredited)


Notes

Jeavons had previously appeared in Potter's '' Blue Remembered Hills'', Bellman later appeared in Potter's '' Secret Friends'' while Germaine went on to star in '' Lipstick on Your Collar'' and ''Midnight Movie''.


References


External links

* {{Dennis Potter 1989 British television series debuts 1989 British television series endings 1980s British drama television series BBC television dramas 1980s British television miniseries Television shows written by Dennis Potter British English-language television shows BBC television miniseries Television controversies in the United Kingdom BBC controversies 1989 controversies