Dennis Potter was passionate about the Forest of Dean, and the close knit community and beautiful landscape in which he grew up. The Dennis Potter Archive project celebrates the visionary work and legacy of Dennis Potter in the place, and with the people, that played such an important part in his life and career.

The Dean Heritage Centre in partnership with Voices in the Forest, the University of Gloucestershire and The Rural Media Company secured funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Local Action Group to purchase, preserve and display the Dennis Potter Archive at the Heritage Centre and create new materials for local and national distribution.

Blue Remembered Hills is perhaps one of Potters most famous television plays. The play concerns a group of seven year olds playing in the Forest of Dean one summer afternoon during 1943. One of the most striking features of the play was that although the characters were children they were played by adult actors

The Rural Media Company will be working with young people from Lakers School in Coleford to create their own 21st Century version of Blue Remembered Hills. The young people will study the play and archive, visit locations and be trained in film production to undertake their own unique version of this famous play.

The Dennis Potter Archive project partners with Lord Bragg

Rural Media will also be working with volunteers at the Dean Heritage centre, training them in the use of digital media to record interviews (film and audio) with local people who knew or worked with Dennis Potter.  

The Potter collection comprises material spanning several decades of his writing
career, and incorporates typewritten, handwritten or copies of scripts, notebooks and
production documentation of his plays. It also includes well known works and
unpublished works, initial drafts and final scripts.

Similar Projects

Over The Hill?
Our new cinema short will premiere on Weds 29th February at Borderlines Film Festival

The Marches
The Marches, a collaboration between Rural Media and BBC Radio 4, is at Borderlines Film Festival on the 27th and 28th Feb at 2.15pm

Back to the Future
Back to the Future is a filmmaking project with older people in Residential Homes and young people in Housing Foyers

Lord Bragg, broadcaster, author and friend of Dennis Potter paid a visit to the project in October.

Lord Bragg said: “I think the idea of using the archive as a launching pad, irrigating the appetites of the young people of the area, is as good as it gets really. I couldn’t think of a better way to employ it, rather than it being something to be stared at. Taking it on the way that you are doing is very imaginative, it’s the sort of thing that Dennis would have been extremely happy with”

The Dennis Potter Archive is an important historical archive but the DHC would also
like it to become a living, lasting legacy by including memories, memorabilia and
artefacts from people in the local area who either knew, worked with or have
recollections of time with Potter. The Potter archive and exhibition is due to open in 2012.

If you would like to donate items or memories to the archive please contact the centre on 01594 822170 or email alex@deanheritagecentre.com. Fior more information on Rural Media's project contact Adrian on adrianl@ruralmedia.co.uk