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the complete review - television
Joe's Ark
by
Dennis Potter
general information | our review | links | about the author
| Title: | Joe's Ark |
| Author: | Dennis Potter |
| Genre: | TV script |
| Written: | 1974 |
| Length: | 43 pages |
| Availability: | in Blue Remembered Hills - UK |
- Included in the volume Blue Remembered Hills (a collection originally titled Waiting for the Boat), along with Blue Remembered Hills (see our review) and Cream in my Coffee (see our review)
- The volume Blue Remembered Hills / Waiting for the Boat also contains an introduction by the author, 'Some Sort of Preface ...'
- Joe's Ark was first broadcast on BBC 14 February, 1974. It was directed by Alan Bridges.
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Our Assessment:
B+ : powerful, though tends toward the melodramatic
See our review for fuller assessment.
The complete review's Review:
Joe's Ark is a powerful little play, with some particularly well-written scenes in it.
Ultimately it does not fully realize its potential, but it is still a fine piece.
It is set in a Welsh town.
Joe Jones runs a pet shop, and while he rules over this little world he has been disappointed by god and church.
Upstairs his daughter Lucy lies dying from cancer, an osteogenic sarcoma eating away at her bones -- and this after she escaped the provincial life with academic success, making it to Oxford.
Joe's son, Robert, has fled the household and works as a comedian, a sore point for Joe.
A friend of Lucy's from Oxford, John, comes to visit.
He is in love with her, but she can't reciprocate his feelings, hoping only to see her lost brother.
Joe rages against god, religion, and all the world.
John tries haplessly to provide some comfort to Lucy.
Lucy wastes away.
The play skirts close to melodrama for much of the way, and occasionally descends into it.
Nevertheless, Potter is in fine form here, and his characters are well-developed even in these few short scenes.
The writing is very good, and it makes a fine read.
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Joe's Ark:
- IMDb page
- Clenched Fists - the official Dennis Potter web site
- Brief biography and bibliography
- Blue Remembered Hills
- Cold Lazarus
- Cream in my Coffee
- Hide and Seek
- Karaoke
- The Singing Detective
- See also: Potter on Potter (ed. Graham Fuller)
- Humphrey Carpenter's biography, Dennis Potter
- The Passion of Dennis Potter -- a collection of international essays
- See Index of TV and Film-related books
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English author Dennis Potter (1935-1994) is best known for his television scripts Pennies from Heaven and The Singing Detective.
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