Brimstone and Treacle

Brimstone and Treacle is a 1976 play by Dennis Potter which is best known via adaptations as a 1976 BBC television play and a 1982 film co-starring Sting.

The play follows the fortunes of a middle-aged middle-class couple living in a North London suburb. Their life has been catastrophically affected by a hit-and-run accident which has left their beautiful undergraduate daughter in a coma, but their existence is dramatically changed by the arrival of a mysterious young stranger.

Outline of the plot

For a couple of years, Tom and Amy Bates have been struggling to cope with their transformed lives, after their daughter Pattie (or Patricia) has been severely injured in a hit-and-run accident. Pattie is strapped down to the living-room sofa, unable to wash or eat by herself or talk, merely uttering unintelligible sounds. Although poorly-educated and gullible, Amy Bates firmly believes that Pattie is able to understand what is being said in her presence, whereas Tom Bates has given up all hope of her recovery:

Patricia is gone from us, Amy. She has gone for ever. You must accept it.

In fact, judging from the sounds she makes, Pattie seems to realize what is going on around her, but Tom Bates is beyond noticing.

One day on his way home from work he becomes a witness of an unusual scene: A handsome, well-dressed and well-behaved young man collapses in the street, and Tom Bates is among the passers-by who are offering to help him. The young man, who gives his name as Martin Taylor, quickly recovers. A few hours later he shows up at the Bates', handing Tom Bates his wallet, which, Martin pretends Tom lost in the general hubbub. Though the cash is gone, Bates' credit card is still there. This is how, in a Pinteresque way, "Martin" gains access to the Bates household. Although Martin's true identity remains a mystery, the play's title suggests he might be the Devil.

From the moment he enters the house, he casts furtive and knowing glances at the audience (according to the stage directions) so they know at once that he is not what he pretends to be.

His offer to the Bates family is a very unselfish and humanitarian one: He wants to be at Pattie's side despite the changed circumstances; he wants to care for her for an unspecified period of time and, by doing so, give the Bateses a break. Amy Bates in particular jumps at the suggestion; she has not had an hour off since Pattie's accident and is stranded in the house without the chance to go even to the hairdresser's or do some window-shopping.

Tom Bates is reluctant to accept Martin's help. He has always been very choosy about his daughter's friends and, as he cannot remember Pattie ever mentioning Martin's name, does not want her to be left alone with what might well be a complete stranger. Eventually Martin wins him over by his excellent cooking and by lip-service to his bigotry.

Martin does not lose any time: At the first opportunity he rapes the helpless Pattie (although in the film version, the rape comes late in the action, precipitating Pattie's return to consciousness). When Amy Bates comes back from the shops she does recognize a change in her daughter's facial expression, but she attributes it to Martin's presence rather than any disturbing experience she might have had. However, when Martin tries to rape the disabled girl again after Mr. and Mrs. Bates have gone to bed, Pattie starts screaming so loudly that he runs out of the house. When the Bateses come to see what has happened to their daughter, they find that she has fully recovered from her disabilities and, confused, asks her father what has been happening to her. An added twist in the film version is that when Pattie reawakens, she also recovers her memories of the events preceding her accident, which result from her discovery of her father's infidelity.

Different versions

Brimstone and Treacle was originally written by Potter as a television play, commissioned, paid for and recorded (1976) by the BBC, for their Play for Today slot. It was not shown, because then Director of Television Programmes Alasdair Milne found it "nauseating". Later, between 1982 and 1987, Milne was Director-General of the BBC, in which role he ironically became a hate figure of the Thatcher government for, among other reasons, not being censorious enough. Brimstone and Treacle was finally shown in 1987, and is now available on DVD.

The cast were Denholm Elliott (Mr. Bates), Michael Kitchen (Martin), Patricia Lawrence (Mrs. Bates) and Michelle Newell (Pattie); plus minor characters.

Rewritten by Potter for the stage, the play premiered on October 11, 1977 at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield.

A film version directed by Richard Loncraine and starring Denholm Elliott (Bates), Joan Plowright (Mrs. Bates), Suzanna Hamilton (Pattie) and Sting (Martin) was released in 1982 and is also available on DVD. In the film, Mrs. Bates' first name is Norma instead of Amy.

Potter on Brimstone and Treacle

In 1978, Potter said:

I had written Brimstone and Treacle in difficult personal circumstances. Years of acute psoriatic arthropathy—unpleasantly affecting skin and joints—had not only taken their toll in physical damage but had also, and perhaps inevitably, mediated my view of the world and the people in it. I recall writing (and the words now make me shudder) that the only meaningful sacrament left to human beings was for them to gather in the streets in order to be sick together, splashing vomit on the paving stones as the final and most eloquent plea to an apparently deaf, dumb and blind God. [...] I was engaged in an extremely severe struggle not so much against the dull grind of a painful and debilitating illness but with unresolved, almost unacknowledged, 'spiritual' questions.

See also

• Brimstone and Treacle (soundtrack)

External links

• Brimstone and Treacle at the Internet Movie Database (1987 TV)
• Brimstone and Treacle at the Internet Movie Database (1982 film)
• British Film Institute Screen Online
• TV Cream review