Forbidden love:
Heart-breaking drama focuses on one man torn between two relationships.
The emotional conflicts of a homosexual man in the 1940s and 50s being torn between a traditional family life and his love for another man are explored in the drama Man In An Orange Shirt.
Written by the novelist Patrick Gale, this heart-breaking British drama was created to mark the 50th anniversary of the Sexual Offences Act, which partially de-criminalised homosexuality in the UK. Man In An Orange
Shirt, which features the Oscar-winning actress Vanessa Redgrave, traces the challenges and alterations to gay lives from World War II to the present day.
Oliver Jackson-Cohen takes the lead role of British Army Captain Michael Berryman, who is torn between his old school pal Thomas March (James McArdle) and his fiancee Flora (Joanna Vanderham), who is later to become his wife.
Vanderham found it fascinating to
research the period depicted in Man In An Orange Shirt. “I did quite a lot of research into attitudes towards homosexual men at the time,” she says. “It’s an interesting but disheartening period of our social history, mainly fuelled by ignorance and shame.” Vanderham says at its heart, Man In An Orange Shirt is
about love.
“It’s a love story – a complicated, beautifully written, engaging story about complicated love. And I think most people can relate to being in love with the wrong person.”
The first episode starts in 1944. In the confusion of World War II, British Army Captain Michael Berryman runs into an old school friend, an artist called Thomas March in Southern Italy.
Even though he has a fiancee, Flora, back in Britain, Michael can’t help falling in love with Thomas.
They briefly have an illicit affair
“I think most people can relate to being in love with the wrong person.” – Joanna Vanderham
before Michael goes back to a very different life in London. As the prospect of marriage and children with Flora beckons, Michael is torn between two lovers.
Jackson-Cohen says he was instantly drawn to Gale’s writing.
“It’s very rare to read scripts that have something to say and I really felt it did ... It is a story that is incredibly honest, that deals with love and love that is forbidden. There is something inherently potent about that.”
The actor, who has also starred in Dracula, Mr Selfridge, The Great Fire and World Without End, says his character does his best to fit in with society’s expectations.
“When romance blossoms between Michael and Thomas, Michael is mathematical in his thinking. He chooses to conform in life, so he gets married and has a child.
“But as a result, he is then forever conflicted because the man he loves
– Thomas – keeps coming back into his life over the course of 10 years. It creates chaos for Michael and his family. He chooses to continue on this life that’s a lie and the ripple effects are dramatic.”
Michael’s turmoil is intensified by the fact that he also has deep feelings for Flora.
Jackson-Cohen reflects that, “He does love Flora, I think, but it’s a different kind of love. He has an awful lot of respect for Flora, but in a sad way he is using her. He is using her to keep this fantasy alive, this fictitious life that he has built with her. “But I do actually think that it hurts and that is why there is the conflict. I think that if he didn’t love Flora, then he wouldn’t care. “It is because he cares so deeply about Flora that he doesn’t want to hurt her at all, but he also doesn’t want to hurt Thomas. But, of course, in turn he is hurting both of them.”