Alan Bates/Gina Bellman/Frances Barber - Secret Friends

Unfairly neglected since its original low-key cinema run, Secret Friends is the only feature to be written and directed by Dennis Potter (Pennies from Heaven, The Singing Detective). Made shortly after his hugely controversial mini-series Blackeyes, the film centres on a writer, played by Alan Bates (A Day in the Death of Joe Egg), who descends into a kind of madness during a train journey as memories, fantasies and psychotic visions collide.