Fantastic!

best movie i've ever seen.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

The Singing Detective is without a doubt, the best television miniseries ever! That being said, where is the Amazon.com link and the DVD link? What's up IMDb? I read where Amazon owned you guys and I am thinking maybe they don't anymore? I miss those links. Please bring them back. How else am I going to know when stuff is available on DVD? Anyway, go buy The Singing Detective. I pities the fool that doesn't get to see this TV show. "Am I right or am I right?" It follows the exploits of Philip Marlow a writer of detective stories who is bedridden with a terrible skin/joint disease and involves his wild fantasies induced by said disease while lying in bed. The story in his head clashes with the real world and also incorporates memories of his childhood. Sometimes the stories become intermixed. It still packs an emotional wallop after 25 years. Michael Gambon is a revelation as both the writer and as 'The Singing Detective'.

The Singing Detective is certainly one of the best things ever to be seen on TV. It certainly caused a stir in the UK at the time because of its explicit treatment of sexuality. The story certainly is multi layered and fascinating and the acting is superb down to really minor characters. Usually the success is attributed to Potters's writing. When you read the screenplay which was published by Faber & Faber you certainly read an interesting story (although somewhat influenced by DH Lawrence) but you are not as overwhelmed as you are when seeing it on screen. So from my point of view The Singing Detective is at least as much the product of Jon Amiel and the mesmerizing pictures he creates plus his direction of actors. I find it amazing that the beautiful Alison Steadman never became the English Catherine Deneuve.

It is Dennis Potter's imaginative and intelligent use of the technical possibilities provided by television - combined, of course, with the deep humanity of his vision - that marks The Singing Detective as a uniquely brilliant work.His ground-breaking technique is the moving between separate levels: the present of the patient Philip in the ward, the past of his childhood experiences that is so ever-present in his memory and so influential on him as an adult, and the world of his imaginary detective story that in turn derives its own inspiration and motivation from those problems of the past. The result is a breadth and depth of analysis of a man's life, including the impulses of the creative process itself, that has never been matched on television, at least to my knowledge.And it is beautifully, hauntingly, filmed and soundtracked.

I heard about this miniseries last year in the local newspaper. One critic wrote that it was the best thing ever to be showed in Television. After reading this i started researching and i finally bought (Directly from England) "The Singing detective" DVD. I believe i wasn't prepared at first to see "The singing Detective", because i thought it would be a regular mini, but i was wrong. After watching the first episode i realized that i had to watch it again because i didn't understand even one of the scenes in the first episode. After re watching it and reading some of the comments in this site i continued watching the rest of the episodes. I watched 6 hours straight of pure brilliance.I recommend this mini to everyone that can understand true artistic achievements.10/10