I never liked Dennis Potter until I saw this series. I don't like musicals – the idea of a group of people bursting into spontaneous communal song never appealed to me, but the combination of scenario (a post second world war era where the war is now fought as much in the halls of Whitehall as on the battlefield – and Britain is losing) and music (British 50's) just hit the right note with me (pun intended). The characters are superb (this was the first thing I ever saw Ewan McGregor in) and the situations genuine. The relationships between the junior ranks in both military and civilian life in the era they are set are really believable (so my dad says). I loved the music so much I bought the CD, I just wish they would bring it out on DVD. Thanks Dennis.

A tale of youthful lust, against a backdrop of the Suez crisis and national service. Interspersed with some great music of the era, which, for some reason the cast just start singing along to. Seems silly, and it is, but it works, and adds the right touch to the storyline, reflecting all those times when you wish life was a musical.

If you have a vivid imagination and your mind likes to wonder, you will be wonderfully rewarded by watching this Dennis Potter gem! It has a great fifties soundtrack and music numbers that are choreographed with exciting imagination! (but maybe Dennis needed to get out a bit more) The characters are well casted, and there performances, are extremely well delivered. As an added bonus, you get to see Ewen McGregor before he went to the Dark Side! I watched this show when it was first released on television, more than ten years ago, and loved it, and after a recent viewing, found the show had not lost any of it's edge! Maybe hard to find now, but! if you have not seen it, hunt it down! Enjoy!

Dennis Potter brilliance. The series shows why the Suez crisis was such a disaster with intelligence officers that prove the assertion that the term "Military Intelligence " is an oxymoron. My favorite character is the sex crazed Wurlitzer player from the Odeon. Recommended

This is definitely one of my favorite things of all time to watch--what does it for me, though, is the style and synchronization of the various 50's pop songs that are deliciously sprinkled throughout the movie---simply fantastic-----they blend well with the story and its characters and you are always pleasantly surprised when a new song just pops out of someone's mouth at the (sometimes) most inopportune time. I can't understand why it is not yet out on DVD---I purchased Potter's "Singing Detective" last year and I am anxiously awaiting this one---someone please light a fire under the powers that be in England so that we can all enjoy this treasure in its proper format.

I watched it when it was first televised in 1993 and watched at all again recently. Could sit and watch it again and again. Naked ladies, stuttering Welshmen, war office clerks/professional mimers, creepy old perverts, old school eccentrics...what more could you ask for? A great soundtrack? We can do that. Well written, well directed and superbly acted. It's a shame Dennis Potter is no longer with us, we need more of his ilk to produce top quality TV comedy so we don't have to endure anymore crap we get from across the pond. I think we're getting there with people like Peter Kay. Would LOYC or Phoenix Nights do well in the States? The guy who played Hopper stood out for me, what happened to him?

This TV series was simply wonderful, for me it's the best that I've seen of Dennis Potter. I wasn't born at the time that is depicted in the series (the year 1956), but it is all very convincing.

Never was boredom funnier than here. Rectal orifices, indeed! Waiting, waiting, waiting for Kim Philby's race forecast. Adhering to silly rituals to make the time pass and feeling that the country goes slowly downhill. Its really a relief the series has – under the circumstances - a happy and uplifting ending.

There are many great characters in this series, the whole cast excel themselves. Louise Germaine is very sexy and effective as Diana Dors lookalike, a pity she didn't continue her small or big screen career. The most interesting character for me was uncle Fred. I suspect there still are quite a few people like him out there. The whole set up at the house where he lives reminded me very much of 10 Rillington Place. I wouldn't be surprised if Potter created uncle Fred with Reginald Halliday Christie in mind.

I can highly recommend this series.

Like all of Dennis Potter's work, this shows us what film could & should be. It wakens all the old dormant brain cells. Yes, imagination & inspiration do still live & are still the main ingredients of REAL ART!!! Not necessarily compatible with democracy, tho, maybe, who knows?

Super integration of songs and plot, superb acting by all. One of my favorite movies, although it's really too long to be a "movie." Giles Thomas is wonderful as private Francis Francis. I own this one and watch it at least once a year. It's that good. This is NOT a movie for children, as none of Potter's work is. One of the song and dance numbers is integrated into the plot in a most extraordinary way. It's the one in the military intelligence office about Egypt with the camel. The room is floor is full of balloons. When the number ends, and we get back to "reality," Col. Bernwood walks across the floor and kicks a final, pink balloon out of the way.

A couple of foreign office clerks are very bored at work and their attention wanders.

The 1950's never look like much fun to me. Give me a time tunnel and the 50's wouldn't be the first number I dial up.

With a modest budget and a bit of nerve this series looks back with nostalgia on this buttoned up decade. Where a bit of peroxide and hint of stocking sent the boys wild -- I bit like today now that I think about it! This is fun and I love the way McGregor plays the virgin office boy. Not that he wasn't a bit younger back then.

A fun bit of TV fluff although like most of Potter's work it goes on too long.

In my view this is one of Potter's most impressive works. It has been years since I saw the series on television but I remember it became the highlight of my week. The unpredictable plot and the surreal use of day dreams and 50's music was masterful.

Louise Germaine was brilliantly cast as the stunningly beautiful Sylvia. She was beautiful that is until she spoke, revealing the most dreadful accent. A memorable performance. Even back in the early nineties it was clear that Ewan MrGegor was destined to go on to greater things.

Highly recommended viewing.

Dennis Potter was one of the best UK TV drama writers, a position shared with Alan Bennett. Unlike the latter, Potters' work to my mind deteriorated as he grew older. All of his work features repressed sexuality that emerges in accord with situation and opportunity. In spite of what he had said about enjoying an unbounded sexual life, I believe though he may have yearned for such a life, his work was the nearest he ever got.

The six-partner is set in a changing Britain, and uses the background of the Suez emergency, which was Britain's last act as an imperial power. It focuses on a military intelligence unit based in the War Office which has an ambiance indicative of the then (less so today) highly class structured society.

Ewan McGreggor in a breakout role plays daydreamer Mick Hopper serving as a clerk/Russian linguist in a Whitehall based military intelligence unit during his last days as a national serviceman.

He works with a bully of a Corporal Pete Berry (Douglas Henshall), a socially inept Welshman/office newcomer, Private Francis Francis (Giles Thomas) supporting four stereotypical upper-class officers in the preparation of basic intelligence gleaned from Russian newspapers and documents obtained from outside sources. During the time that the drama takes place, the team is having to prepare a revised Battle Order although what this is and for whom its to be prepared is not explained (A 'Battle Order' is the organisation of military forces and may be considered to be similar to an businesses functional 'Organisation Chart').

The centre of the piece is the relationship each of the men have with Berry's wife the 'dumb blond' Sylvia Berry (Louise Germaine). As may be expected from Potter, it's the sexual relationships between the three men and the blond which are explored, each being different from the other. I use the term 'explored' loosely, they are clearly differentiated by extreme differences.

Over the six one-hour episodes, a tangled web emerges from which each gets what s/he deserves or desires - you'll need to watch to see who gets what and how!

The interrelationships between these four characters and aspects of Sylvia's private life in which see sells sexual favours to an organist who provides recitals on the organ at the cinema where Sylvia works (played by Roy Hudd) that are at the core of the piece.

Plot development is more happenstance than design. Chance events provide the key plot elements and these seem obviously unlikely. Potter did not develop any real background to the characters, they just 'are'.

At times, as in Potter's 'Blackeyes', I was of the impression that the nudity featured, both of Sylvia and a winged nude or 'Earth Angel' that Hopper dreams up while at work served no great purpose other than to titillate the audience and Potter especially.

An 'odd couple' are included, played by Maggie Steed and Bernard Hill, being Aunt Vicki and Uncle Fred to Francis Francis in whose flat he has been invited to stay during his military service. This flat, as it happens, is downstairs to that occupied by Corporal Berry and Sylvia, his wife. The two couples don't get on.

I don't think that the songs to which the characters lip-sync emerge either as subtly during or as relevant towards the piece as they did during Pennies From Heaven especially and tended to have a stand- alone quality, even though for the most part generally plot consistent and well staged.

The work was for me entertainment by way of vignettes rather than a developing storyline and it is for that reason that I don't think it ranks among his best works. It's clearly imitatively of the structure used in Pennies/Detective, but lacking in storyline and plot development. Unlike those two BBC dramas, this was produced for Channel 4. I wonder if the BBC would have produced it if given the option? I suspect not.

The work produced by Potter towards and at the time of his early death is not, and perhaps ought not be expected, to be of his best but it remains watchable, entertaining and well produced all the same and is of a quality exceeding most British TV of the time.

I found videos of the six episode series for BBC 4 in 93 ' gathering dust on local library shelves. I watched them and then watched them again. I renewed them with the library. I've now done this three times and am trying to track down a copy for my own library.

I don't understand how these could have been overlooked they are wonderfully brilliant. Truly well written with that quirky surreal twist that only Dennis Potter can create.

I am now on a personal crusade to bring this marvelously entertaining work of art to the attention of anyone who will listen.

How can this have been overlooked in the States? I think this may very well be Dennis Potters best for the small screen.

The UK Cast and crew including Ewen McGregor are impeccable,,,, Do yourself a favour and find a copy to view and you two will be singing songs from the 50's again.

I believe that for pure enjoyment,and a little nostalgia,this was Denis Potter's best work and, for me, had more depth than "Pennies From Heaven". The individual story lines in "Lipstick" in their basic form were entirely believable and the acting by the whole cast excellent.

Since the first time I ever watched LYC it has remained very special in my memory, so much so that since the recent re-run on UK TV I have come to write my first ever review regarding viewing or reading material. I have to add this production is so special that I purchased a video copy imported from USA at a cost of £140 in early 2000 and now have a downloaded version that I have on DVD. I am only writing here about the special experience I have received from LYC and not about the plot etc, and wonder how much fun it must have been for the crew and actors to take part in LYC. LYC leaves you laughing, cringing and leaves me even know with a lump in my throat and shivers down my spine when watching the final of the last episode. Pack up your arms & surrender to mine, and all of the other spontaneous musical moments are truly great. The only disappointment I have is that it had to end, but I know every now and again I can pull out a copy and view this most wonderful production with an inner feeling that I need to preach to all to sit down and watch Lipstick On You Collar so they to can share this wonderful wonderful experience .

I remember watching this first time round in 1993 (when I was 14) and really enjoying it. I have recently watching it again - currently free on 4 on demand - and probably liked it even more.

The mini series is set during the Suez Crisis and is wonderfully surreal and amusing - the scenes in the war office when they all burst into song and particularly good (and a brilliant song track from the period). Definitely one to watch if you have not done so

I highly recommend it - much better than Cold Lazarus - which I also watched first time round when it was on TV - but after revisiting this I think I may have to give it another shot

It's out now on DVD (but you have to have a non-zonal player). I was blown away when I saw it the first time. Also, I just did my about-35 year anniversary reading of Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, and I know I felt a strong resonance between Pynchon's acid-trip evocation of the late- and post-WWII years and this satire about Post-War Brit (world?) culture decay.

Pynchon also is known for having assorted characters break into song at the drop of a situation.

Furthermore, he incessantly switches between "reality" and someone's subjective fantasy life. Not that Potter doesn't in his own right love to do the same, but I'm not sure if it's a matter of influence or just coincidental genius.

This is a must-see!

They don't make shows like these anymore.

Yes Dennis Potter had a warped mind but this story is more sensitive with lots of fun, nostalgia and nudity thrown in for free, taking a swipe at the upper classes but obviously not understanding women.

The amount of nudity here wouldn't be allowed today and probably only got away with it in 1993 because it was screened on Channel 4.

Hi jinx and low PC. Just like things used to be.

Great songs and stories to cast you away to the cinematic days of the 50s.

I think it was Einstein who said that creativity is intelligence having fun. I do think the three go hand in hand, whether or not the finished work is 'fun'. Fun can be all sorts after all, to my my mind it's less to do with jokes and more with relaxed awareness, fresh mind, a capacity for spontaneous appreciation of what's going on. In cinematic terms, I have the most fun with Altman. Celine and Julie Go Boating.

In TV, that's Dennis Potter, though his work is closer to the cinema than anything. I do think this is subpar work compared to Singing Detective, but that's setting up a tough comparison. It falters with a bit of sloppy writing in the latter episodes, and an absolutely annoying protagonist in the bookish Welsh boy. Overall, it can be said to be a rehash of Detective and Pennies in Heaven.

However, it fits everything just mentioned. It's creative work, intelligently conceived. Like Altman, it has narrative space enough to wander, to unfold time as it trickles. Like Celine, it is layered fiction about a real world that stifles youthful dreaming.

Youth trapped in menial work, three army guys working in the British War Office and a blonde bombshell, she an usherette in a movie theater, who gets to intimately know all three. Each episode begins with newsreel footage of what's going on in the world; cinematic light as it creates, out of nothing, the world of responsibility and organized anxiety.

It's the middle of the 1956 Suez Crisis, which adds to dreary routine a sense of impending catastrophe. There is some getting to understand that this was the end of an Empire, from the adult perspective there's a lot of worrying and despair.

It really was a volatile time, with Kruschev threatening with (nonexistent) nukes London and Paris if they didn't pull out of Nasser's Egypt. The main focus, though, is noting all this distant absurdity against what really makes the heart beat faster.

It is searching for true love. It is finding the girl who is right for you, dreaming about her, staring out the window at night summoning her to you. We have these marvellous shifts from humdrum reality at the Office to marvellous, sometimes plain silly daydreaming.

It is fun not because of the jokes. It is fun, in the sense of an exhilarating spirit, because the mind is not bogged down by drama. This is the the real lost youth, the innocence of gaze not having the mind 'stop' at every worry. Isn't this what happens in the film when we escape via song? There is movement in mind, even to sometimes inane stuff. I saw this spread over a couple of days, oddly enhanced by my reading of a series of essays written by a Zen monk and calligrapher in the 1600's. He was talking about something like this, letting go of the mind that holds the mind.

For me, that is the the look of exhilaration on Ewan McGregor's face as he dreams of being Elvis. Well, that is sending out the mind. Even more penetrating films show how that is the same as having the mind return, but that's another story.