Mr Loverman, adapted from a Booker prize winning novel, is the story of the pain that comes from living a life of lies.
Barrington Walker (75) is a successful Londoner who moved from Antigua as a young man.
He did well for himself and is self-described as a “man of property and style.”
He’s well known and respected in his Hackney community and struts the area with his best friend Morris, accepting compliments for his sartorial style.
His children affectionately call Morris ‘uncle’, such is his regular presence in their house.
But Barrington’s wife Carmel is irritated by his drinking and regular touring of the area’s nightspots.
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When he comes home late and drunk, she suspects him of infidelity with women of less religious conviction than herself.
She’s half right. The infidelity is with Morris, his lover for more than 50 years from when they met as boys in Antigua.
Barry, who likes to quote Wilde and Shakespeare to reinforce his life view, has decided he’s had enough of Carmel’s angry words and it’s time to “set himself free”.
He promises an excited Morris that he’s finally going to tell her.
But the following day Carmel is flying home to Antigua to see her 100-year-old father on his death bed and Barry can’t bring himself to do it.
In flashback we see the couple as young men in the Caribbean and in the early days in England.
We see Barry and Carmel’s joy when their children are born and Morris’s almost-destruction when his wife catches the pair in a sexual embrace.
Morris’s family life is destroyed, and Barry only survives because Carmel refuses to believe it when the other wife rings to tell her.
The damage is everywhere.
In flashback we see Barry suffer a ‘gay bashing’ in the local cemetery where he had gone for a hook up.
Barry is a functioning alcoholic and there is a sense that drinking helps him to cope.
Carmel has narrowed her social life over the years to her church friends, and the deepening of her religious conviction appears be a reaction to the destruction of her relationship with Barry.
Barry rages when his wife’s church friends sit around his kitchen table and denigrate gay people as sinful.
Barry’s favourite daughter says she’ll never speak to him again unless he heals the rift with her mum and we see in Barry’s eyes the realisation of the faith awaiting him if he were to leave his wife for his gay lover.
As he walks Hackney main street, getting hellos and compliments from passersby and shop keepers, Barry mused as to what it will be like when his secret is revealed.
Amid the destruction, Morris remains more positive and dreams that despite most of their life having passed, they can still have a happy ending and even get married.
He’s understandably jealous of a younger gay friend who proudly wears his engagement ring after announcing the intention to marry his partner.
The reality is more complicated, and Barry doesn’t hold back when the couple meet for a future planning lunch.
It’s the tragedy at the heart of this drama. Everyone suffers from the stigma and criminalisation of homosexuality.
Clearly this primarily impacted the victimised men but also drew others into the pain. The wives in marriages of convenience who found their lives were built on sand. The children of those marriages. The family and friends who felt deceived.
This affected almost all societies but was most pronounced in conservative cultures such as the Caribbean community of Barry and Morris and there are distinct similarities to Ireland of the 1980s and 90s.
All eight episodes of Mr Loverman are available on the BBC iPlayer.
