Dennis Potter's Cream in My Coffee (1980)

Cream in My Coffee is one of my favorite Dennis Potter teleplays, shot on location by Potter's own production company, PFH, for London Weekend Television. An elderly married couple, Bernard and June (Lionel Jeffries, Peggy Ashcroft), revisits the Grand Hotel in Eastbourne, East Sussex. During the 1930s, prior to their marriage, they had stayed there in a room overlooking the swimming pool.

With the young Bernard (Peter Chelsom) called away, June (Shelagh McLeod) deals with the advances of an apparent precursor to Potter's Singing Detective, the hotel's big-band crooner Jack Butcher (Martin Shaw), who sings "You're the Cream in My Coffee" and other tunes from the period. The sound of wooden handles on cords dangling and clicking at the window is Potter's transitional device for interweaving past and present. Destiny made audible, "like someone tapping on the lid of your coffin." Peggy Ashcroft won a BAFTA Award for her performance. Dennis Potter on DVD

The Grand Hotel in Eastbourne