Marlow chooses a killer, who looks more like adult Binney, to live and himself to die, thus showing growth. Janet Henfrey has previously played the same character in Potter's earlier TV play Stand Up, Nigel Barton. Marlow as a boy is played by Lyndon Davies, while William Speakman plays Mark Binney (schoolboy); Davies and Speakman were contemporaries at Chosen Hill School in Gloucestershire, close to Potter's birthplace of the Forest of Dean. Some members of the cast play several roles. Marlow and his alter ego, the singing detective, are played by Michael Gambon. Patrick Malahide plays three characters—the contemporary Finney, who Marlow thinks is having an affair with his ex-wife Nicola, played by Janet Suzman; the imaginary Binney, a central character in the murder plot; and Raymond, a friend of Marlow's father who has an affair with his mother (Alison Steadman). Steadman plays Marlow's mother and the mysterious "Lili", one of the murder victims. At the end of the serial, Marlow and Nicola appear to have repaired their relationship. Production In Potter's original script, the hospital scenes and noir scenes were to be shot with television (video) and film cameras respectively, with the period material (Marlow's childhood) filmed in black-and-white. All scenes were shot on film, over Potter's objections. Potter wanted the hospital scenes to maintain the sensibility of sitcom conventions. Although this was tempered in the final script, some character interactions retain this concept. For example, Mr. Hall and Reginald, who are also intended to serve as a mock chorus for the main action occurring in the hospital. Originally the title of the series was to be "Smoke Rings", and the Singing Detective noir thriller was to be dropped after the first episode; Potter felt it would not hold the audience's attention. The discarded title may have referred to a particular monologue delivered by the hospitalized Marlow in the first episode, which includes the sentiment that, despite everything else, the one thing he really wants is a cigarette. Marlow's medical and mental progress is subtly gauged by his ability to reach over to his dresser and get his cigarettes. Sources Borrowing portions of his first novel, Hide and Seek (1973), Potter added autobiographical aspects (or, as he put it, deeply "personal" aspects), along with 1940s popular music and the noir style. The result is regarded by some as one of the peaks of 20th-century drama. Marlow's hallucinations are not