This week’s castaway is the playwright Dennis Potter. Best known for his television series Pennies from Heaven and The Singing Detective, Potter worked as a journalist and television critic before turning to writing. In conversation with Michael Parkinson, he looks back on his childhood in the mining community of Forest of Dean, his career in Britain and Hollywood and talks about coping with psoriatic arthropathy.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: My Happiness by The Pied Pipers