Lipstick On Your Collar (DVD)

Young women and old music: playwright Dennis Potter indulges his traditional passions for both in this, his last full length series from 1993. Having tackled the 1930s in Pennies From Heaven and the 1940s in The Singing Detective, Lipstick on Your Collar turns to the 1950s.

Specifically, its 1956 and naïve, clumsy Private Francis Francis  (Thomas) and his colleague Mick Hopper (McGregor) are enduring a tedious time serving out their National Service in the dusty confines of the War Office, somewhere even the eruption of the Suez Crisis has done little to enliven.  The only thing keeping them going is their collective lust for local bombshell cinema usherette Sylvia (onetime glamour model Germaine). That and Hopper’s tendency to fantasise about his friends and work colleagues spontaneously breaking into spectacular rock and roll song and dance routines.

It is these mimed musical sequences which, of course, became Potter’s trademark and while they always take some getting used to, they are definitely the high point here. No matter how bizarre it might seem (and indeed is), there’s something very funny about seeing pompous, middle aged war office officials – Clive Francis and the late Peter Jeffrey particularly – spontaneously launching into sometimes raunchy dance numbers. Although, like fellow Scot Douglas Henshall here, he is lumbered with an unconvincing cockney accent, a young Ewan McGregor is particularly impressive, even making a convincing Elvis for a number of the songs.

The best ones are Love Is Strange and an extremely bizarre sequence based around the song If I See The Moon and thanks to the DVD’s Jukebox feature anyone wishing to watch the musical bits in isolation can do so. But be warned: Lipstick On Your Collar isn’t actually one of the songs included, perhaps because as a 1959 release, it would be a bit conspicuous in a series purporting to be set in 1956.

Many things in Lipstick On Your Collar haven’t aged well. Thomas’s performance isn’t far off being a “comedy Welshman” and is generally annoying throughout. And much of the series – like a lot of Potter’s work -is frankly just weird and seemed so even at the time.

But McGregor – in his first major role – aptly demonstrates why he would soon achieve Hollywood stardom. And anyone who enjoys Dennis Potter’s unique concoctions of sex, music and nostalgia should already have been eagerly awaiting this release for some years already.

Overall Verdict: Sometimes funny, frequently weird and with a fair bit of sexual content, this is typical Dennis Potter enlivened by a strong early performance from Ewan McGregor.

Special Features:
Lipstick Jukebox
Dennis Potter Biography
Cast Filmographies

Reviewer: Chris Hallam