- davidlittle
- Oct 15, 2024
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A LITTLE THOUGHT
Having a little thought is always better than having no thought at all.
Lennie James and Sharon D Clarke are exquisite in this bold, spiky tale of a gay man who starts to regret living a lie. The awards are sure to flood in
Lennie James stars as Barrington Walker
Mr Loverman, adapted from the Booker prize-winning author Bernardine Evaristo’s novel, is about what it means to have a good life built on lies. A good life, but a half-life. Written by Nathaniel Price, it stars Lennie James as Barrington, the Mr Loverman of the title, Barry to his friends. Barry is a charming 75-year-old dandy (we move with him through the decades and the costume department plays a blinder throughout) and a successful businessman, husband, beloved father and grandfather.
Morris De La Roux (ARIYON BAKARE) & Barry Walker (LENNIE JAMES) in Mr Loverman. (BBC/Fable Pictures/Des Willie)
He is also the secret lover, for 50 years and counting, of Morris De La Roux (Ariyon Bakare). They have been friends since their boyhood in Antigua and soulmates since they were old enough to know what the word meant. Their relationship is a beautiful thing. When they are together, their happiness is almost palpable.
But the 50 misspent years are tragic and their effects corrosive. Not least, of course, on Barry’s wife, Carmel – played magnificently and heartbreakingly by Sharon D Clarke, to whom awards should and must be coming. Carmel has long suspected her husband of being unfaithful, although she thinks it has been with a string of women over the years. The joy she felt at being chosen by, as her cousin admiringly puts it decades on, “the most popular man on the island” has curdled. She has immersed herself more and more in the church community, especially after giving up work and the various chances for happiness it and her colleagues offered.
It is only the church, and perhaps her daughter Donna (Sharlene Whyte) and her grandchild, that keep despair banished to the periphery. But at her core is a yearning to be loved by Barry and her incomprehension at how that has failed to happen, despite the life they have built together. It is not true, as Barry claims during a night out with Morris, that “nobody can stay depressed around me”.
Barry is coming to a point of no return. At 75, he knows time is running out and regrets are rushing in. He tells Morris he is finally ready to leave Carmel and be with him, if still covertly.
Morris looks at him with weary tenderness. They have been here before. Flashbacks gradually reveal how many times – and what they have cost Barry’s patient, self-effacing lover. But Barry swears that this time it’s true. He will tell her when she comes back from church. No, tomorrow. No, as he drives her to the airport to fly to Antigua to tend to her abusive, now dying father whom she has not seen for 30 years. He does not manage it. But there is a scene in the car that tears your heart open nevertheless.
While they are apart, Carmel and Barry taste a different, more authentic life. Carmel’s own secrets and some of her internal world are revealed, while, in London, Barry begins to realise that nothing can be hidden for ever.
I am making it sound like a miseryfest. It is not. There is plenty of light as well as shade (much of it provided by Barry and Carmel’s high-maintenance drama queen of a younger daughter, Maxine – played by Tamara Lawrance, who has funny bones), which is helped by each episode being a tight 30 minutes rather than the full hour you might expect such a drama to be given. But it never shies away from reality, including the homophobia of the family’s community, which is especially prevalent among Carmel’s posse of Christian ladies.
It doesn’t shy away, either, from Barry’s many flaws. Through his actions and inner monologue, viewers see life unfold around him; he is selfish, embittered and lacking in compassion. But Mr Loverman asks how you can avoid being any of these things when the world you grew up in forbade you to express yourself freely and you are discriminated against for your sexuality and your skin colour.
This is a different, spikier, much braver tale about the Windrush generation than usually makes it on to our screens. There is closeness, vibrancy, violence and sorrow in the mix, plus an examination of many forms of love and how they can either strengthen or warp under pressure. It is more of a mood piece than an action-packed drama, with closeups of human life, with all its exquisite agonies and joys, portrayed by actors at the top of their game.
Mr Loverman aired on BBC One and is available on BBC iPlayer
BBC says its welfare team has looked into apparent tension between the contestants and is not planning further action
Katya Jones said on Instagram that the tense moment between her and Wynne Evans was an ‘inside – a very silly, very silly – inside joke between Wynne and I’. Photograph: Guy Levy/BBC
The Strictly Come Dancing contestants Katya Jones and Wynne Evans have insisted they were playing a joke when she brushed his hand away as he moved it across her waist, before snubbing his attempt at a high-five with her.
The incident, caught on the show’s cameras, had caused some to ask if it was evidence of inappropriate behaviour by the male contestant towards his female dance partner. But the BBC said its welfare team had looked into the matter and was not planning to take further action.
“The hand incident that happened on Saturday night was an inside – a very silly, very silly – inside joke between Wynne and I. So even the idea that it made me feel uncomfortable or offended me in any way is complete nonsense,” Jones said in an Instagram post on Sunday, in which she appeared alongside Evans.
“It’s quite absurd actually. Now, can we just focus on how brilliantly he’s doing and what an amazing dancer he’s becoming?”
Speaking to BBC Radio Wales on Monday, Evans said: “I’m absolutely heartbroken by the things that have been written about me in the last day. It’s not nice to live in that time, but basically Katya and I are really, really close and we’re really good friends, and on Saturday night we made a stupid joke.
“It was a stupid joke that went wrong, OK? We thought it was funny. It wasn’t funny. It has been totally misinterpreted.”
He added that Jones had “explained that it was a joke”, saying: “She wasn’t offended in the least. She doesn’t feel uncomfortable.”
He said: “We’ve got a brilliant friendship, an absolutely tight friendship, and I’m sorry if anybody was offended by it, but it was a joke.”
Footage showed Evans standing behind and to the side of Jones during a segment of the show referred to as the Clauditorium – in which the host Claudia Winkleman talks to the dancers. His hand is initially on her waist and, without breaking her smile, Jones is seen to push it away as he moves it frontwards.
In another segment, Evans holds his hands up to initiate a high-five with Jones, whose back is to the camera. But she turns away from him – this time without a smile.
A Strictly source told the PA news agency: “Wynne and Katya have confirmed that their interactions in the Clauditorium were silly jokes they had planned together and have apologised to anyone who may have misinterpreted them.
“They addressed them on Wynne’s Instagram, where their apology can be found. Katya would like to clarify further that she was not offended by Wynne and was not made to feel uncomfortable in the least.
“The welfare team have checked in on the pair and there are no further actions planned.”
Strictly returned in September this year for its 20th anniversary with a new cast of celebrities and some changes, including the presence of chaperones during rehearsals.
The chaperones followed a review launched by the corporation after Sherlock actor Amanda Abbington made complaints about her 2023 Strictly professional dance partner Giovanni Pernice.
A Little Thought:
Following Abbingtongate this has all got very boring and tedious.
Must be a real problem for the couples as one wrong hand move can be misconstrued as inappropriate when in all innocence it was just that, a wrong hand move.
The show sadly is losing its sparkle, every week there will questions hanging over it and that is wrong.
Abbington is probably gloating somewhere and I am surprised she has not given her opinion as she normally has a lot to say.
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