Lipstick on Your Collar (Dennis Potter 1993)

During the Suez Crisis of 1956, two young clerks at the stuffy Foreign Office in Whitehall display little interest in the decline of the British Empire. To their eyes, it can hardly compete with girls, rock music and the intrigue of romantic entanglements.



Lipstick on Your Collar is a 1993 British television serial written by Dennis Potter, originally broadcast on Channel 4. It is also notable for being Ewan McGregor's first major role.



The main story is set in a British Military Intelligence Office in Whitehall during 1956, where a small group of foreign affairs analysts find their quiet existence disrupted by the Suez Crisis. Ewan McGregor plays Mick Hopper, who is doing his national service as an interpreter of Russian documents. Bored with his job, Hopper spends his days creating fantasy daydreams that involve his work colleagues breaking into contemporary hit songs. Louise Germaine plays Sylvia Berry, the blonde wife of the violent Corporal Pete Berry (Douglas Henshall). Sylvia is an object of desire for Mick's fellow clerk Private Francis Francis and a middle-aged pipe-organist named Harold Atterbow (Roy Hudd). Unlike the street-wise Hopper, Francis is a clumsy Welsh intellectual whose academic career has been interrupted by his army call up. The appearance of the bookish niece of a seconded American officer enables the two conscripts to pair off with suitable partners, after initial mismatching.



Some of the side themes include the influence of American Rock and Roll on English society, the gulf between the senior analysts, who are regular army officers, and the conscripted other ranks, the work of Russian playwright Chekhov, and the appreciation of opulent theatre pipe organs. The unusual context — a military culture transplanted into a civil service style office environment — reflects Potter's own national service during the 1950s.



It is viewed by some critics as being the final entry in the musical trilogy Potter began with Pennies From Heaven (1978) and The Singing Detective (1986). The serial was the last production of Dennis Potter during his life. He died from cancer in 1994, having written two works which were produced posthumously.



The series was nominated in 1994 for two BAFTA-awards, in the categories "Best Make-up" and "Best Sound".



The title of the series is anachronistic: the plot is set during the Suez Crisis of 1956, but the Connie Francis title track was actually released in 1959, long after the conflict had ended.



Cast: Giles Thomas, Louise Germaine, Ewan McGregor, Peter Jeffrey, Clive Francis, Douglas Henshall, Roy Hudd, Maggie Steed, Bernard Hill, Shane Rimmer, Kim Huffman.



Script: Dennis Potter

Director: Renny Rye

Producer: Rosemany Whitman

Executive Producer: Dennis Potter

Whistling Gypsy Production, Channel Four



VHS rip.



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The series expands considerably on its predecessor ["Lay Down Your Arms"> by juxtaposing the changes in British society after the austerity years with the increasing role that the United States would play in its development, symbolised by the introduction of Rock 'n' Roll music and the unsuccessful attempt to reclaim Suez without American support. On its own merits, Lipstick on Your Collar has much to recommend it for its fine soundtrack and an excellent performance from Louise Germaine as the Diana Dors-styled cinema usherette who dreams of wealth and glamour but is a tough realist at heart. The mental disintegration of the senior War Office staff is surprisingly low key and fits in very well in what is an uncharacteristically comedic and even sunny work that sees the often nostalgic Potter clearly coming down on the side of youth and renewal. (Sergio Angelini)





[From the "Clenched Fists" website]



Many reviews emphasized the sexual attraction of a new "stunner", Louise Germain. More than one newspaper review pictured her, her ample breasts clasped in the hands of an actor embracing her from behind. ("Gripping Stuff" was the Mirror's headline.) Several critics protested what they perceived as indecency. An executive at the BBC, Peter Ansorge, wrote in the March 15th Guardian that, following a journalist's attack, the political editor of the Sunday Times 'took up the cudgel . . .,' claiming: '"Nasty Lipstick" smears sex and violence over the screen, with Dirty Den . . . exploiting "the climate of permissive television" to the "point of abuse."'



According to Ansorge, "graphic violence" never appeared on the screen, nor was the play sexually prurient. Nevertheless, it became a political storm centre, bringing John Major into the fray.



Victor Lewis-Smith, in February 22nd's Evening Standard, gave the play high marks, and concluded: "Whatever Channel 4 paid him they've got their money's worth already." There was general agreement among the critics that "Lipstick" was on its way to success. Lawson found it to be Potter's jolliest and most accessible work for years. Curiously, he alone seems to have recorded that the plot is a not-much-reworked repetition of Potter's 1970 "Lay Down Your Arms." Each was a revisit to the War Office in which Potter spent his two years of military service.



On May 21st and 22nd, 1994, long after I had seen the early British reviews, I was able to view "Lipstick on your Collar." A musical extravaganza, it offered little which could be considered particularly original by Potter standards. The music was accompanied by wonderful miming and dancing. (Potter employed the choreographer who had been so superb with "The Singing Detective.") The buoyancy and humour of the play made for top-notch entertainment. By whatever standards exist for violence on American television, Lipstick is rather subdued.



Potter acknowledged to Fuller: ' . . . recently [after his debacle with "Ticket to Ride"/"Secret Friends">, Channel 4 were frightened to death of my directing "Lipstick on your Collar" in case I subverted my own work. And they may have been right! (p. 31, 134)'; 'I did feel rather melancholy about killing off my old self.' (by directing "Blackeyes.") Then: 'So that's it - I've had it [as director].' With respect to his going it alone: 'I suspect nobody now would fund something I was directing . . . maybe I need a mediator.' (p. 139)



Mediators, in fact, often play important roles in getting plays produced, and that was one of Trodd's talents. It was not, I believe, his "old self" that he killed off. He seems to me to mean that his tremendously inflated ego balloon, had been punctured, for the moment.



'...after completing Episode 1, Potter had run out of ideas and wanted to call the whole thing off. He actually returned his fee to Channel Four but the channel refused to accept the cheque.' [Daily Telegraph]