Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Fight And Kick And Bite The Life And Work Of by W. Stephen Gilbert Fight & Kick & Bite The Life and Works of Dennis Poffer, by W. Stephen Gilbert (Sceptre, £7.99 in UK) Dennis Potter was/is very much an English reputation and an English phenomenon, and one wonders whether the cult which arose around him shortly before his recent death, from pancreatic cancer, is transient or will outlast this century. Originally a working journalist, he was disabled by a rare disease called psoriatic arthropathy and turned to writing plays, mainly for television. His energy and sheer professionalism were unquestioned and apart from his many plays he also turned out TV serials, film scripts and novels. The author of this biography is himself a TV producer as well as a busy journalist and critic, which gives him a special insight into the world in which Potter made his name. He thinks that Singing Detective and Pennies from Heaven are the cream of Potter's large output. Plainly he was a "difficult" man, but then he was constantly fighting disease and disablement, as well as troubles in his emotional life, while competing in a notoriously tough, even ruthless medium and milieu. Fight And Kick And Bite: The Life And Work Of Dennis Potter by W. Stephen Gilbert. Introduction: (1) William Shakespeare, Hamlet (London: Arden Shakespeare, 1982), 2, 2, 520. (2) Raymond Williams, Drama from Ibsen to Brecht (London: The Hogarth Press, 1987). (3) His television career began on the 6th of July 1959, when he took up a post as a general trainee with the BBC. His first wrote for BBC Television in 1960 with a Panorama production called ' Between Two Rivers ' and following that he continued to write for TV all the way up to his death on the 7th of June 1994. (4) See, Peter Stead, 'The Public and the Private in Dennis Potter' in The Passion of Dennis Potter: International Collected Essays , ed. by, Vernon W. Gras and John R. Cook (New York: St Martin's Press, 2000), p. 18. (5) John R. Cook, Dennis Potter: A Life on Screen (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995). (6) Dave Evans, 'Clenched Fists: The Dennis Potter Homepage' default.htm (25 Aug, 03). (7) Gras and Cook, 'Introduction' p. 9. (8) W. Stephen Gilbert, Fight and Kick and Bite: The Life and Work of Dennis Potter (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1995), p. 267. (9) Philip Marlow in, by, Dennis Potter (London: Faber and Faber, 1988), pp. 18, 58. (1) William Shakespeare, Hamlet (London: Arden Shakespeare, 1982), 4, 5, 173-174. (2) Dennis Potter, , dir. Brian Gibson, prod. Kenneth Trodd (BBC1, Play for Today, 30th January, 1979) and, Dennis Potter Blue Remembered Hills: A Play by Dennis Potter (London: Samuel French, 1984). Henceforward all references will be given as BRH and will refer to page numbers in the text. (3) William Wordsworth 'Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood', in, The Norton Anthology Of English Literature Volume 2 , ed. by, M. H. Abrams and Stephen Greenblatt (New York: W. W. Norton & Co, 2000), p. 287. (4) Dennis Potter and Piers Haggard cited in, W. Stephen Gilbert, Fight, Kick and Bite: The Life and Works of Dennis Potter (London: Hodder and Staughton, 1995), p. 242. (5) Dennis Potter, Intro to BRH, p. v. That Potter follows this innocuous remark with a scathing, somewhat cruel, though also hilarious attack on the acting profession - 'I almost wrote "grown-ups", but then realised I was talking about actors' - obviously marks him as a very particular character (6) Victor Shklovsky, 'Art as Technique', in Modern Literary Theory: A Reader , ed. by, Philip Rice and Patricia Waugh (London: Arnold, 1996), pp. 17-18. (7) Raymond Williams, Drama From Ibsen to Brecht (London: The Hogarth Press, 1987), p. 278. (8) Raymond Williams, 'Realism and Non-Naturalism 1', The Official Programme of The Edinburgh International Television Festival 1977 , Aug. 1977, p. 30, in, John R. Cook, Dennis Potter: A Life on Screen (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995), p. 27. (9) Respectively: Williams, Drama, p. 279, and Cook, Dennis Potter, p 27. (10) Georg Lukács, Writer and Critic (London: Merlin, 1970), pp 110-148. (11) Williams, Drama, p. 289. (12) Williams, Drama, p. 279. (13) Williams, Drama, p. 279. (14) Graham Fuller, ed. Potter on Potter (London: Faber & Faber, 1994), p. 21. (15) Troy Kennedy Martin, 'First Statement of a New Drama for Television', Encore , 11:2, Mar-Apr. 1964, p. 24. Cited in: Cook, Dennis Potter, pp. 27-30. (16) W. Stephen Gilbert, Fight, Kick and Bite: The Life and Works of Dennis Potter (London: Hodder and Staughton, 1995), p. 59. Potter in fact stood as a Labour candidate for the Hertfordshire East ward in the general election of 1962. Harold Wilson's Labour Party won the election but Potter failed to gain his seat. (17) Potter, BRH, stage directions, p. 1. (18) This 'familiar unfamiliarity' can be extended across the work of Potter with his frequent use of the 'adults playing children' device, i.e. Stand Up, Nigel Barton (BBC1, The Wednesday Play, Dec 1965) and (BBC1 and Channel4, May-June, 1996). (19) A. E. Houseman, 'A Shropshire Lad XL' in This Green Earth: A Celebration of Nature Poetry ed. by William Scammell (Maryport: Ellenbank Press, 1992), p. 102. (20) Dennis Potter, Intro, BRH, p. v. In particular, Wordsworth's 'The things which I could see I now can see no more' ( Intimations , l. 9) with, Houseman's 'The happy highways where I went/ and cannot come again' ('Untitled', l. 8). (21) Houseman, l. 5. (22) Mandy Mason (played by Louise Germaine) in Dennis Potter's Midnight Movie (1993), quoted in, The Passion of Dennis Potter: International Collected Essays , ed. by, Vernon W. Gras and John W. Cook (New York: St Martin's Press, 2000), p. xvii. (23) Cook, p. 114. (24) Dennis Potter, Into, BRH, p. v. (25) Potter, cited in Cook, Dennis Potter, p. 114. (26) BRH, p. 1. (27) Myth is a tricky word to use, but here with an ideological overtone I'm trying to suggest the way in which myth - rather than being seen as fable - can be read as an 'account of origins' and, more importantly, as an 'active form of social organisation'. See, Raymond Williams, Keywords (London: Fontana Press, 1983), p. 211. (28) BRH, p. 2. (29) BRH, pp. 25-26. (30) BRH, p. 14. (31) BRH, p. 19. (32) BRH, p. 17 (33) BRH, p. 34. (34) BRH, pp. 30-31. (35) BRH, p. 4. (36) BRH, pp. 7, 12, 26. (37) BRH, p. 12. (38) All References to this scene, BRH, p. 8. (39) BRH, p. 24. (40) BRH, p. 11. (41) BRH, pp. 11-12. (42) Arthur Koestler, Janus A Summing Up (London: Pan Books Ltd, 1979), p. 5. (43) Koestler, pp. 83-85. Citing Dr Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority (New York, 1974) in Dialogue, Vol 8, No. 3/4 (Washington, 1975). (44) Koestler, p. 89. (45) Koestler, p. 94. (46) As others have pointed out these scenes, especially the squirrel killing, bear much resemblance to the killing of Simon in William Golding's Lord of the Flies (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1961), pp. 144- 147. (47) BRH, p. 22. (48) Jasper Rees, The Independent , September 26, 1996, "If the SS cap fits; Why are British actors always being asked to play Nazis? And why do they look so good in the bad guys' clothes? Maybe because the Nazis themselves were so very theatrical." See, http://www.betsyda.com/denisof/sources/indep092796.txt (23, July, 2003). (49) Primo Levi, If This is a Man/The Truce (London: Abacus, 1998), pp. 15, 31. (50) Koestler, p. 85. (51) Koestler, p. 89. (52) Williams later dates this development to a process which took place between the 17th and 19th Centuries, with the term becoming commonplace by the '1830s, at latest', Williams, Keywords , pp. 192-197. (53) Raymond Williams, Culture and Society 1788-1950 (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1963), pp. 287-288. (54) Williams, Culture and Society, p. 316. (55) Stuart Hall, 'Notes on Deconstructing the Popular', in, People's History and Socialist Theory ed. by, Raphael Samuel (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981), p. 235. (56) Stuart Hall, 'Notes', p. 228. (57) BRH, p. 5. (58) Cook, p. 115. (59) Cook, p. 115. (60) BRH, p. 9, (61) BRH, pp. 6, 11. (62) BRH, pp. 15, 33, 35. (63) John Hamling, ' Pyromania ' see, http://members.ozemail.com.au/ (1) William Shakespeare, Hamlet , 3,4,139. (2) Dennis Potter, The Singing Detective (London: Faber and Faber, 1998). All subsequent references will be given as TSD and will refer to the published script by page. (3) George W. Brandt British Television Drama in the 1980s (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 9-10. Also, Wendy Brading, ': She Fought for Her Beliefs' http://www.thisisessex.co.uk/essex/local_interest/famous_faces/public/mwhitehouse2.html (25 July, 2003). (4) Potter, in, Fuller, p. 10. (6) Joost Hunningher 'The Singing Detective: Who Dun It?' in, British Television Drama in the 1980s , p. 241. (7) Potter in, Fuller, p. 10. (8) Potter in, Humphrey Carpenter, Dennis Potter: A Biography (London: Faber and Faber, 1998), p. 380. (9) Dennis Potter, Lipstick on Your Collar , 2 Vols, dir. Renny Rye, prod. Rosemary Whitman (Whistling Gypsy/Channel 4, Feb-March, 1993). (10) Potter, in, Fuller, pp. 10, 95. (11) Gilbert, pp. 38-39. (12) Potter, in, Fuller, p. 11. (13) Potter had a particularly bad experience with the documentary form after making Between Two Rivers for the BBC's Panorama in 1960. The documentary was to supposed to give an 'essentially personal view of the feel … of a small …region of England, and how its people are reacting to the …pressures of "admass" society'. This of course all sounds very familiar and it shouldn't be a surprise to discover that the subject was his home town in the Forest of Dean. People in the town were very unhappy with the 'subjective' results and it even led to what Potter saw as a betrayal of his father - but we can't go into that here. See, Gilbert, pp. 79-81. (14) Cook, pp. 146-147. (16) Hall, 'Notes', pp. 227-228. (17) Williams, Culture and Society , p. 291. (18) Williams, Culture and Society , p. 288. (19) In a further thickening of 'the plot' Potter also seemed to hope that The Singing Detective would in some way heal himself ''My disease is to some extent psychosomatic and in finally exorcising Marlow, I hope that somehow I may leave my illness behind', he told (Cook, p. 245). (20) Obituary, The Daily Telegraph (Nov, 2001), see: 'Nutter Watch: Obituary', http://www.melonfarmers.co.uk/nwmaryw.htm (27 July, 2003). (21) Carpenter, p. 456. Quite what the extra two million viewers made of such an exceptionally complex drama after having missed the first three episodes I find it hard to imagine. (22) Gras and Cook, 'Introduction' in The Passion of Dennis Potter: International Collected Essays ed. by, Vernon W. Gras and John R. Cook (New York: St Martin's Press, 2000), p. 1. (23) Raymond Williams Culture (London: Fontana Press, 1986), pp. 99-103. (25) Gilbert, p. 271. (26) Peter Stead, 'The Public and the Private in Dennis Potter', in The Passion of Dennis Potter , p. 21. (27) Gilbert, p. 158. (28) Mr Hall 'a seemingly irascible (but essentially ingratiating) small shopkeeper' ( TSD , p. 3.), TSD , p. 6. (29) William Denton, 'Twists, Slugs and Roscoes: A Glossary of Hardboiled Slang ' see, http://www.miskatonic.org/slang.html (27 July, 2003). (31) Philip Marlow in TSD , p. 212. (32) TSD , p. 56. (33) Dennis Potter, in Melvyn Bragg, An Interview with Dennis Potter (London: Channel 4 Television, 1994), p. 6. (35) Gilbert, p. 54. (36) Richard Hoggart, The Uses of Literacy (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1959), pp. 202-205. (37) A term first coined by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990). (38) As an aside, Hoggart hilariously describes these cafés as 'an aesthetic breakdown so complete that, in comparison with them, the layout of the living-rooms in some of the poor homes … seem to speak of a tradition as balanced and civilised as an eighteenth-century townhouse' (Hoggart, p. 203). (39) We mustn't neglect to note here, with regard to what follows, that Bogart is considered to be 'a key iconographic figure in all of ', see; Lee Horlsey ' The Iconic Figures of Film Noir ' http://www.crimeculture.com/Contents/Film%20Noir.html (29 July, 2003). (40) Hoggart, p. 204. (41) Hoggart, p. 218. (42) Gibbon to Marlow, TSD , p. 51. (43) Hoggart, p. 216. (44) Incidentally the work of Chandler was also influential on Potter: when he appeared on BBC Radio 4's With Great Pleasure in 1976 he selected an extract from Chandler's The Big Sleep (1939) and explained, interestingly in the autobiographical context, that ''it was 'one of my riper fantasies' to imagine [myself] as Marlowe' (Carpenter, p. 437. And Gilbert, p. 196.). (45) See, Frank Krutnik, In a Lonely Street: Film Noir, Genre, Masculinity (London: Routledge, 1994), pp. xi, 22. (46) TSD , p. 1. An instant irony, in view of what follows. (47) Hunningher, p. 245. (48) Cited by Lee Horsley in ' The Development of Post-War Literary and Cinematic Noir ' http://www.crimeculture.com/Contents/Film%20Noir.html (29 July, 2003). (49) TSD , p. 142. (50) Interestingly Potter's only significant contribution to the rehearsals came when Patrick Malahide, who played Binney, Binney and Finney, was told, 'what you've got to understand about this character [Finney] is that he simply doesn't exist, he's a figment of somebody's imagination'. Jon Amiel, in, Gilbert, p. 270. (51) Potter, in, Fuller, p. 87. (52) There's a distinct correspondence between what Potter is here describing and the French Situationists' concept of 'detournement' - 'the mutual interference of two worlds of feeling, or the bringing together of two independent expressions, supersedes the original elements and produces a synthetic organisation of greater efficacy. Anything can be used'. A favourite slogan was, 'Plagiarism is necessary, progress implies it'. See, Guy Debord and Gil J. Wolman ' Methods of Detournement' in Situationist International: An Anthology , ed. by, Ken Knabb (Berkley: Bureau of Public Secrets, 1981), pp. 8-14. (53) Potter, in, Fuller, p. 96. (54) TSD , p. 29. An interesting precursor to this scene can be found in Delmer Daves 1946 adaptation of David Goodis' novel Dark Passage , where a distinctly sinister - as opposed to Potter's merely patronising - Doctor looms in towards Vincent Parry's (played by Humphrey Bogart) distorted expressionist first-person point of view. (Delmer Daves, dir. Dark Passage (©1947 Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc.). (55) Gibbon to Marlow, TSD , p. 52. That these lines occur early in episode two suggests more than a simple criticism of Marlow. (56) Hoggart, p. 124. (57) Hoggart, p. 187. (58) Hoggart, p. 184. It's interesting how widely Potter's use of 'I've Got You Under My Skin' resonates. (59) Dennis Potter, 'Realism And Non-naturalism', in Cook, p. 145. (60) TSD , p. 210. (61) The book within the play - not The Singing Detective. (62) TSD , p. 56. (63) TSD , pp. 67, 69. (64) TSD , p. 70. (65) TSD , p. 76. This scene is deeply, and purposefully I think, reminiscent of the children in Blue Remembered Hills. (66) TSD , p. 29. (67) TSD , p. 212. (68) Hoggart, p. 241. See for example, Glen Creeber, 'The Anxious and the Uprooted: Dennis Potter and Richard Hoggart, Scholarship Boys', in The Passion of Dennis Potter , pp. 31-37. (69) TSD , p. 184. (70) Let's not forget here the very funny banter between Mr Hall and Reginald - especially the constant class related embarrassment regarding the functions of the body. (71) TSD , p. 230. (72) These scenes are intertextually related to Potter's previous work, Stand Up Nigel Barton! , where a similar misdemeanour has to be admitted. The teacher is played by the actress Janet Henfrey in both plays. (73) TSD , pp. 138, 140, 160, 165-166. (74) TSD , p. 22. (75) TSD , p. 22. Of course there's no way Potter could have resisted using the other Marlowe - these lines coming from Dr Faustus (1592). Potter, Dennis (1935-1994) Dennis Potter was one of the most sign ificant and innovative dramatists in the history of British television. From 1965 until his death in 1994, he created an oeuvre of haunting intensity and personal vision that ranks with the greatest achievements in any popular art form. His two best-known works to international audiences, Pennies from Heaven (1978) and The Singing Detective (1986), are strikingly original miniseries that use the television narrative to journey into an inner, psychological reality. Both series and many of his other dramas, including Moonlight on the Highway (1969), (1980), and Karaoke (produced posthumously in 1996), share a fascination with popular culture and employ songs non-naturalistically to reveal repressed emotions. Although he wrote such films as and , Potter considered television "the most democratic medium," and used all his creative powers to open up the artistic possibilities of the medium. Further Reading: Carpenter, Humphrey. Dennis Potter: The Authorized Biography. London, Faber and Faber, 1998. Cook, John R. Dennis Potter: A Life on Screen. Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1995. Fuller, Graham, editor. Potter on Potter. London, Faber & Faber, 1993. Gilbert, W. Stephen. Fight & Kick & Bite: The Life and Work of Dennis Potter. London, Hodder & Stroughton, 1995. The Museum of Television & Radio. The Television of Dennis Potter (published in conjunction with an exhibition of the same title). New York, 1991. Potter, Dennis. Seeing the Blossoms: Two Interviews and a Lecture. London, Faber & Faber, 1994. Dennis Potter. In the world of British popular culture, Dennis Potter was an important figure. He came to the attention of American audiences when Pennies From Heaven, a mini-series, was broadcast on public television stations in the late 1970s, then adapted for a Hollywood film in 1981. Though the series gathered many viewers the screenplay was nominated for an Academy Award, he first became widely known in the United States seven years later when New York's television station WNET aired his autobiographical drama The Singing Detective. Potter was born May 17, 1935, in Berry Hill, Gloucestershire, the Forest of Dean, and often is the sights and sounds of this coal mining region to which he returns in his work. In The Singing Detective, for instance, the middle-aged protagonist must relive scenes of his childhood in the Forest of Dean in order to sort out the conflicts of his life. Potter went to Bell's Grammar School in Coleford after attending Christchurch Village School. Potter was said to be a shy child, somewhat of an introverted loner. He lived with his mother, Margeret, and siblings in the home of his paternal grandparents, but because of limited space, his mother was forced to take the children to live with her family in Hammersmith. When Potter was 14, the family moved to London, where he attended St. Clement Danes Grammar School on a scholarship. In 1953, Potter joined the National Service at the Intelligence Corps. And remained there for two years. Later, he was sent from Sussex to Bodmin in Cornwall. He then joined the Russian Course leading to duty as a Russian Language clerk at the war office in Whitehall. When his national service ended, he won a scholarship to New College in Oxford to study Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. There, he was involved in the fortnightly Oxford Union debates, and onstage productions (Marlowe's Dr. Faustus ) including others. He also submitted his work to the Isis literary magazine and later became the editor. He resigned from the editor's seat after a misunderstanding with the owners of the magazine. Around the same time, Potter began writing for New Statesman. After graduating from New College in Oxford in 1959, Potter wrote pieces for the BBC as a trainee, the London Daily Herald (he became its TV critic), and the London Sun. In 1960, the BBC produced a documentary, Between Two Rivers, which he wrote and narrated about the village where he was born. It was not until 1964, when he was defeated as the Labour candidate for a seat in the House of Commons, that he began to look upon writing as his vocation. By then, he was married to Margaret Morgan and had three children to support. He was also motivated by the onset of psoriatic arthropathy, a disease which causes both pain and weakness to the joints and severe scaling of the skin. About twice a year attacks were disabling enough to require hospitalizations; the rest of the time they were controlled by medication. His illness, Potter said, made him introspective, reclusive. "For me, writing is partly a cry of the soul. But at the same time, I'm bringing back the results of a journey that many people don't get a chance to make. … ." Potter tried his hand at movies. In 1988 he wrote the screenplay for a Nicolas Roeg film, Track 29. In addition to Pennies From Heaven, he adapted Martin Cruz Smith's Gorky Park for the screen. His favorite medium, however, remained television. After Stand Up, Nigel Barton (1965), a political satire, he produced over 30 original plays and several adaptations for British television. He also served as director when the BBC wanted to film his novel (1988). Because television uses pictures rather than words it satisfied his dream of "a common culture." "The thought of all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds in all sorts of circumstances seeing the same thing at the same time I find thrilling." Potter wrote about politics, religion, popular culture, and intimate relationships, and he focused on disillusionment, infidelity, and betrayal. Some critics consider the sex scenes and language too explicit, the themes offensive and blasphemous. , his story of a brain- damaged girl raped by the devil, could not be shown by the BBC until 1987, 11 years after it was made. (1969), which depicted Jesus as a common workingman, brought him four hundred pieces of hate mail a week. In addition, Potter distorted time and space, reality and fantasy, in ways no other television writer has tried. In Pennies From Heaven and again in The Singing Detective characters suddenly sing popular songs of the 1930s and 1940s which represent their fantasies or comment on the action. In The Singing Detective, scenes from the real world of the protagonist, hospitalized with psoriatic arthropathy, mesh with scenes from a detective novel he is writing, personal recollections, and hallucinations. The first broadcast was in 1986. After that, Potter began directing with a drama based on his novel Blackeyes and then a feature film , both of which were complete failures. He went back to what he knew best, the musical comedy serial Lipstick on Your Collar. Potter can be looked upon as both realistic and optimistic. He liked nonnaturalistic narrative because it accurately reflects the way in which people see the world, the interpenetration of what is "out there" with their moods and memories, hopes and regrets. And he believed that as his characters came to terms with the facts of their lives through trauma and crisis, they became "sovereign human beings"; they know who they are. Despite his affinity for controversy, Potter came to be admired as an exciting and complex writer. In 1988 the New York Times critic Vincent Canby said of him, "He's made writing for television respectable and, possibly, an art." February 1994, Potter was afflicted with cancer of the pancreas and liver and was given only a few months to live. Because of this, he put his energy into completing his serial Karaoke (1993) and the sequel Cold Lazarus. Both were broadcasted in 1996. In March 1994, Potter taped his last interview which aired in April. Interviewed by Melvyn Bragg, Potter talked about his life, work, ideals, and his futile future. On May 29, 1994, Potter faced the death of his wife and just a week later, his own on June 7, 1994. Further Reading. Among the Dennis Potter works or adaptations on videotape are Pennies From Heaven (the 1981 film with Steve Martin), Brimstone and Treacle (1982), Gorky Park (1983), The Singing Detective (1986), Track 29 (1988), and Christabel, his 1989 adaptation of Christabel Bielenberg's The Past Is Myself. These and a number of other screenplays, as well as miscellaneous nonfiction and fiction, are also available in print. Updated biographical sites can be found in the Dennis Potter Homepage online. A complete account of Potter's life and work exists in Fight & Kick & Bite written by W. Stephen Gilbert (1996). The best source of biographical and critical material is periodicals, including book reviews. A summary of his life and a partial list of his works can be found in Volume 107 of Contemporary Authors and in Contemporary Dramatists, 3rd edition (1982). Two useful articles are: Alex Ward, "TV's Tormented Master" in the New York Times Magazine (November 14, 1988) and Graham Fuller, "Dennis Potter" in American Film (March 1989). □ William Stephen Gilbert Edit Profile. W. Stephen Gilbert was born on May 20, 1947 in Northampton, Northamptonshire, England as William Stephen Gilbert. Education. William studied at the University of London, where he received a Bachelor of Arts (1971). Career. William Gilbert works as a freelance writer. He wrote such works as "Circle Line" (1971), "Private Means" (1986), "Spiked" (1991), "Fight and Kick and Bite: Life and Work of Dennis Potter" (1995). Achievements. He is known for such works as "Circle Line" and "The Superchallenge." Works. Spiked 1991 Fight, Kick And Bite: Life and Work of Dennis Potter by W Stephen Gilbert (1995-10-19) 1995. Connections. He is a companion of David James. Father: William Stanley. Mother: Constance Enid Caroline. Partner: David James. Nationality. Political Party. Education. Awards. Student Drama Award, United Kingdom. Prabook is a registered trademark of World Biographical Encyclopedia, Inc.