Gay tale’s a BAFTAs cert... and I’ll put my shirt on that

As part of the BBC’s Gay Britannia season, it’d be easy to assume BBC2’s is just another gay love story.

It’s more than that though. It’s a two-part, inter-generational tale of wasted lives – or rather, lives that could have been lived differently had attitudes and laws been different.

It’s also one of the most superbly acted and cinematic dramas the BBC has put out in years. If at least one of the sweetheart Captain Michael Berryman (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) fell in love with a former school friend, war artist Thomas March (James McArdle), as they served together in the Second World War.

Recently wed and eight months pregnant, Flora decides to stand by her man and, ultimately, save him from jail.

In some ways it’s difficult to believe people had to face these dilemmas so recently. It is based on a true story though – that of writer Patrick Gale’s parents. The situation and setting is not exactly the same but the crucial scene in which Flora discovered Thomas’s love letters in a drawer and then burned them in a rage was what happened to Gale’s mum and dad in real life.

Next Monday’s second part is set in modern London with Vanessa Redgrave playing Flora. She is now a gran and her grandson is having a gay love affair.

We should probably add Redgrave’s name to BAFTAs list now.