Karaoke (1996)

Genres - Drama  |   Sub-Genres - Crime Thriller, Psychological Drama  |   Countries - United Kingdom, United States  |   MPAA Rating - NR
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Synopsis by Bhob Stewart

During a four-day period in contemporary London, hard-drinking TV scripter Daniel Feeld (Albert Finney) has some unusual experiences in which life begins to mirror fiction. Despite pain, Feeld attempts to go about his daily routines but soon learns that his spastic colon is actually pancreatic cancer. He has written a TV drama titled "Karaoke", and scenes from production are viewed in an editing room by TV director Nick Balmer (Richard E. Grant). On the street and in restaurants, Feeld is startled to find people around London reciting dialogue he has written, and this leads him into a relationship with 22-year-old karaoke-bar hostess Sandra Sollars (Saffron Burrows), who has several synchronicities to a character in his script. As Feeld continues to see other striking parallels, he must decide how to protect Sandra from vicious gangster Arthur "Pig" Maillion (Hywel Bennett), another person from the pages of his script. Feeld and others in the four-part Karaoke miniseries returned in a follow-up, the four-part science-fictional Cold Lazarus miniseries. Both Karaoke and Cold Lazarus were written in 1994 by Dennis Potter during the weeks prior to his death. Potter saw karaoke bars as a metaphor for life, as he noted, "Although you use your own voice, the words are written for you." The two miniseries aired on the BBC and England's Channel Four in 1996, followed by the 1996 U.S. premiere at New York's Museum of Television & Radio and a 1997 airing in the U.S. on the Bravo channel.

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Keywords

alcoholism, cancer, fantasy, gangster, reality, terminal-illness, writing