Tormented and bedridden by a debilitating disease, a mystery writer relives his detective stories through his imagination and hallucinations.
Pulp thriller writer Philip Marlow is in hospital with the skin complaint psoriasis, tormented by his past and threatened by his future. His memories, his 1930s-style gumshoe fiction and his disease weave him an altered reality.
Dennis Potter's drama about a patient struggling to keep his sanity, with the help of his alter ego, the singing private eye. Marlow faces a talking cure with a psychologist.
While in hospital with psoriasis, Marlow thinks back to the war when he was a little boy, and remembers seeing his mother having illicit sex in the Forest of Dean. His memories, his 30s style gumshoe fiction and his disease weave him an altered reality.
Marlow as a child visits London, but is not impressed. A film option on Marlow's novel thickens the plot. His memories, his 30s style gumshoe fiction and his disease weave him an altered reality.
Marlow is getting better and the different strands of his fiction and reality begin to occupy the same time and place.
The young Philip Marlow returns to the country railway station following his mother's death in London. Forty years on, Marlow the hospital patient still dreams about the homecoming and the frightening figure of the scarecrow that now erupts into the ward.
Michael Gambon
Philip Marlow
Joanne Whalley
Nurse Mills
David Ryall
Mr Hall
Sharon D. Clarke
Night Nurse
Gerard Horan
Reginald
Ron Cook
First Mysterious Man
George Rossi
Second Mysterious Man
2026
2022
2025
2020
2024
2023
2013
2018
2015
2004
