Sadly, life being what it is, gone are the days of being able to binge watch major boxsets (I genuinely don't know how we found the time, or how any of my peers still do). So when a series comes along that is both weighty in subject matter, depth and richness but also relatively short and served up in easily consumable chunks, I'm inclined to take note.
The BBC's Mr Loverman - an eight-part adaptation of Bernadine Evaristo's novel of the same name, done and dusted in four hours - certainly fit the bill.
At the heart of the drama is Barrington Walker (Lennie James), a dapper dandy and cad in his 70s, a paterfamilias and pillar of his local community in London who just so happens to have been conducting a secretive gay affair with fellow Antiguan emigre Morris (Ariyon Bakare) for the last 50 years. The blue touchpaper is lit when Barry, having lived a lie for so long but aware he's entering his twilight years, decides it's finally time to come clean to those closest to him.
That means confessing to his long-suffering wife Carmel (Sharon D Clarke), who disapproves of his carousing and boozing and suspects extra-marital dalliances (albeit with women), and his two daughters. And it also means - in Morris' view, at least - taking a step towards being out and proud in public.
It turns out to be an even bigger challenge than Barry could have imagined, and he finds himself hamstrung by inertia and indecision. There are constant reminders of the homophobic prejudice of his cultural milieu that has caused him to conceal his true identity all these years. The illness and then death of Carmel's father back in Antigua puts the confession on ice, while his instinctive revulsion at Morris' suggestion of marriage - at odds with his free-spiritedness, as well as his desire to keep his homosexuality somewhat under wraps - threatens to fatally derail the affair.
What is remarkable is that - while the series cultivates sympathy for Barry as a man caught in an impasse, whose life is unravelling as he sinks into alcoholism - the other key protagonists are also fully rounded characters treated with generosity. Carmel might initially come across as sour and resentful, but she's been ground down by living in a loveless marriage for half a century - a marriage for which, it transpires, she has sacrificed her potential happiness by bringing a short-lived affair of her own to an abrupt halt. Morris knows the meaning of sacrifice too, having lost his wife and children and had to look on as his lover continued to have his cake and eat it.
Mr Loverman is a sensitive, superbly acted portrayal of a complex situation in which everybody is hurting - but a portrayal that is lightened by comic touches and Barry's wit and charm, and that ultimately stands as a celebration of the courage required to be authentically oneself.
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