The Singing Detective

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The extraordinary Oscar-winning actor Robert Downey Jr. (Gothika, Chaplin) completes another signature role in the big screen version of Dennis Potter's (Lipstick on your Collar, Cold Lazarus) exceptional and enthralling dark comedy, The Singing Detective. This intelligent movie will be available to rent on VHS and DVD and to own on DVD from 19th July 2004.

The BBC TV drama captured the nation's imagination in the 1980's and this complex, unusual story told from the mind of a deluded detective fiction writer is as fresh and radical today. Downey Junior is Dan Dark, the skin diseased writer confined to a hospital bed. With plenty of time to think to himself he begins to rework his very first novel in his head only to find that this time it takes him in directions previously unexplored.

Feverish and paranoid he begins to work himself into the novel, becoming the detective desperate to solve the murder of a prostitute. Soon people from his real life - such as his wife - begin to turn up as characters in the novel. Dark finds he has to return back to his childhood to re-live experiences that he had forgotten about - and on top of all of this he begins to believe that he's the singer in a big band!

These confusing experiences combine to help Dark begin to make sense of his life.

Peppered with fun musical numbers, dark explosive moments, great touches from film noir pulp fiction style and a tense building of claustrophobia The Singing Detective is a tour de force testament to Potter's fantastic writing and Downey Junior's intense performance.

Featuring an amazing supporting cast including an unrecognisable Mel Gibson (Signs), TV starlet Katie Holmes (Pieces of April), recent Oscar-winner Adrien Brody (The Pianist), British actor Jeremy Northam (Gosford Park), Robin Wright-Penn (Unbreakable) and Alfre.