Patrick Skene-Catling

Master of vitriol

Potter’s hardboiled, sarcastic wit was heroic — but beneath it lay a nostalgic yearning for an imaginary Eden, as revealed in The Art of Invective: Selected Non-fiction, 1953–94

issue 11 July 2015

‘Genuine invective is an almost lost art in our wild satirical age,’ Dennis Potter complained in New Society in 1966. Now, as the British Film Institute celebrates the life and work of ‘the writer who redefined TV drama’, Oberon Books, with perfect timing, offers this collection of Potter’s critical abuse in journalism and interviews at its most constructively eloquent.

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