Cold Lazarus is a four-part British television drama written by Dennis Potter with the knowledge that he was dying of pancreatic cancer.
Karaoke and Cold Lazarus were filmed as a single production by the same team; both were directed by Renny Rye and feature Albert Finney as the writer Daniel Feeld.
[3] At a cryonics research institute in the former capital city of London, funded by the pharmaceuticals tycoon Martina Masdon, a group of scientists led by Dr. Emma Porlock is working on reviving the mind of the 20th-century writer Daniel Feeld, whose head was frozen after Feeld's death shortly after the events of Karaoke., but prior to the Y2K-caused world war 3 which lead to the future depicted, Unable to see any profit in the project, Masdon considers discontinuing it, but the media mogul David Siltz, who has been spying on Masdon, envisages making a fortune from broadcasting Feeld's memories on TV, and proposes to Porlock that her team work for him.
Glazunov approves of the broadcast of Feeld's memories, which he believes might provoke a revolt against the 'inauthentic' life propagated by the authorities.
At this point Glazunov, Porlock and Luanda Partington (another long standing member of the team) begin to doubt the morality of their project.
Another of their team, Watson, having been coerced into informing on his colleagues, unwittingly denounces Glazunov as a RON member and saboteur.