Karaoke (play)
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Karaoke was a television play written by Dennis Potter with the knowledge that he was dying from cancer of the pancreas.
It forms a pair with the television play Cold Lazarus. The two plays were filmed as a single production by the same team; both were directed by Renny Rye.
Both plays were unique in being co-productions between the BBC and rival broadcaster Channel 4, something Potter had expressly requested before his death. The show was first aired on BBC1 in April 1996 on Sunday evenings, with a repeat on Channel 4 the following day.
Karaoke's main character is Daniel Feeld, played by Albert Finney. Feeld is a writer, and is supervising the editing of a play called Karaoke that he wrote for broadcast. He starts to hear and experience events in the play in real life, and meets a character, called Pig Mailion (a pun on Pygmalion) that he thought he had invented.
In his introduction to the screenplay (published by Faber & Faber), Potter writes: "I offer up the pieces in my love and my life."