# Karaoke (1996)

> A screenwriter finds his murder-mystery script seeping into real life, with a karaoke bar, a waitress named Sandra and a shady owner appearing around him.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/3459

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 4
- Episode runtime: 53 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: drama, mystery
- Created by: Dennis Potter
- Network: BBC One
- Cast: Albert Finney, Saffron Burrows, Hywel Bennett, Roy Hudd, Richard E. Grant, Anna Chancellor, Keeley Hawes, Simon Donald
- TMDB rating: 8.1/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115230/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: moderate
- Complexity: labyrinthine
- Violence: moderate
- Tone: paranoid, wry, unsettling, cerebral, melancholic

## Synopsis

Karaoke (1996) is a British four-episode miniseries created by Dennis Potter for BBC One. Albert Finney plays screenwriter Daniel Feeld, whose script about a karaoke bar, an employee named Sandra and her murder by a shady owner begins to echo the real people and places around him. Saffron Burrows plays Sandra Sollars, and Hywel Bennett plays Arthur 'Pig' Mallion, the owner whose menace grows as Feeld's coincidences multiply. Richard E. Grant and Anna Chancellor also appear among the principal cast. The engine of the story is Feeld's attempt to understand whether he is observing events or manufacturing them, and each episode layers scenes from the screenplay over the grubby, uneasy reality of his life. Set in a contemporary British setting of bars, offices and hotel rooms, the drama is built on paranoia, metafiction and the unsettling pull between invention and fact. Its tone is wry, anxious and cerebral, and the sense of a story writing its author makes it a natural pick for viewers who enjoy the playful dread of The Singing Detective and the self-referential unease of Stranger Than Fiction. Fans of Pennies from Heaven will also find its musical and fictional layering familiar.

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