Two tales of love highlighting the very different challenges that face the couples, with Michael and Thomas just after World War II, and Adam and Steve in the present day. The drama follows two gay love stories set 60 years apart — linked by family, and by a painting that holds a secret that echoes down the generations. The 2-hour-long film (divided into two episodes) explores a forbidden relationship made impossible by illegality and societal pressure, and contrasts it with present-day romance as a minefield of internalized issues and temptations.
This BBC miniseries is one of the most beautiful, elegant pieces of fiction I have ever seen on screen. Novelist Patrick Gale's double love story will remain with viewers for ever.
The superb cast includes Vanessa Redgrave, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, James McArdle, Joanna Vanderham, Laura Carmichael, Julian Morris, David Gyasi, Julian Sands, and Frances De La Tour.
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Because Man in an Orange Shirt is art in a way a political TV ad could almost never be, it is possible for the viewer to feel the yearning, anguish and unrequited love that Thomas experiences.
It is a sad and human story of people trying to do their best when their times allow them no best option.
I knew I wanted to write about homophobia and at least one of its common causes and I feel strongly that homophobia is enabled, time and again, by a sense of shame hardwired in childhood into most LGBT people, a sense that they are somehow deserving of less respect or of worse treatment and a sense that they need to work harder than straight people at being perfect. You need only glance at a gay dating app to see that gay shame is alive and well – even in a sophisticated metropolis there are countless men hiding their faces and asking for “discretion”. As gay men go, I was an early developer, with gay friends in my teens and a lucky one, with a family who didn’t overtly reject me. Yet my sexuality was never acknowledged or discussed and the abiding sense of discomfort, embarrassment even, caused me to develop terrible eczema which lasted until the month I finally left home for university. It was that burden of loving disgust that I wanted to explore in my 21st-century story; it’s the story of a gay man who appears to be functioning in the gay world, and yet is barely functioning on an emotional level because there are so many things in his life that are going unacknowledged and he has such a terror of intimacy and commitment.
I wasn’t interested in writing anything straightforwardly celebratory. I wanted to challenge gay viewers as much as straight ones and I designed episode two to be profoundly uncomfortable watching for anyone tempted to believe that equality under the law is the end of the story. Yes, there are hundreds of well-adjusted gay people out there, truly loved and supported by their families and with emotional lives that are integrated into their work lives and so on. But there are also still a great many people who don’t feel able to be out at work, or to their parents and who – at great cost to their mental health – tell themselves that this is perfectly okay.
On a personal note, the two-part drama made me thankful to be living at a time and in a country where my sexual orientation is not considered to be a crime. The freedom that 50 years of change has given me is something that I and many other younger gay men undoubtedly take for granted. The law has thankfully changed; however, there is still a mountain to climb with regards to attitudes within our society – homophobia being a constant reminder of this. In our schools, many LGBTQ+ young people are facing bullying and intimidation, with long-lasting effects on their mental health and emotional well-being. Beyond the school gates, victims of hate crimes don’t always feel able to come forward and report these incidents to the police, fearing that they will not be dealt with appropriately and sensitively. What’s more, LGBTQ+ people who use social media will be all too aware of the discriminatory content that appears on these sites. Social media platforms must therefore do more to facilitate the reporting of this content and ban people who chose to abuse others through the anonymity of the internet.
So well written, acted and directed. Cohen’s reading of Michael’s love letter to Thomas is haunting!
Man in an Orange Shirt is a powerful and provoking programming that is essential viewing to understand the oppression and discrimination faced by a community who want nothing more than to just love passionately.
I spoke directly to author Patrick Gale, who was kind enough to expand on Flora’s plight. He points out that Man in an Orange Shirt was also one of the ‘few films to highlight the terrible cost paid by many straight women for anti-gay legislation and the lies that it engendered.’ This is a reference to Gale's own mother: the inspiration, in part, for the whole narrative. His mother discovered love letters between her husband and another man. Unlike Flora, she never confronted her husband, and so the ‘what if she had,’ was the seed of Gale’s story.
I liked the movie. Both episodes
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