SOURCE: "A Posthumous Send-Off for a British Original," in New York Times, June 20, 1996, p. 133.

In the following review, O'Connor comments on Karaoke and Cold Lazarus in which the author recognizes Potter's distinctive devices and themes.

Dennis Potter, the most important voice in television drama (Pennies From Heaven, The Singing Detective), died of pancreatic cancer two years ago this month. Appropriately, the notoriously cantankerous British writer has been given an extraordinary send-off.

While he was dying, and sipping morphine to ease the pain, he told Melvyn Bragg in a Channel Four interview that since he had spent his life in television, and since that life had "not been insignificant in television," he would like to see his last two plays produced posthumously: Karaoke, on the BBC and then repeated on Channel Four, and Cold Lazarus, on Channel Four with a BBC repeat.

Astonishingly, Alan Yentob of the BBC and...