On starring in the BBC’S ‘filthiest’-ever drama
That’s the central question being asked in a new BBC drama. Guy Kelly meets its leading man
Every once in a while, a television programme comes along that manages to become a water-cooler topic long before it’s even begun. Sometimes it’s gratuitous violence that gets tongues wagging. Sometimes – all right, one time – it’s a publicity photo of shirtless scything. But there is one subject guaranteed to get people going like none other: sex, and how much of it exactly others are having.
Steven Mackintosh has noticed. On Tuesday evening, the 51-year-old stalwart of British acting – a face you might recognise from Channel 4’s
Kiri, last year’s The Halycon, Luther, or further back as Winston in Lock, Stock,
and Two Smoking Barrels – stars in Wanderlust, a new six-part BBC drama that one tabloid has already branded the corporation’s “filthiest to date”.
In the programme, a co-production with Netflix, the Australian Oscar nominee Toni Collette plays Joy, a middle-aged relationship counsellor who desperately tries to revive her sex life with her husband, Alan (played by Mackintosh), after recovering from a life-changing accident. The couple, who have two sons, try everything from lacy lingerie to role play, but nothing reignites the spark. Soon, they’re faced with temptation away from home, prompting the series’ central question: is monogamy really compatible with the modern world?
It’s true, there are a lot of sex scenes. There’s also some masturbation. And yes – brace yourself – even an orgasm. (This week Collette claimed to be the first woman to have one on BBC One, which isn’t strictly true, as viewers of 1993’s Lady Chatterley or even last year’s Apple Tree Yard have pointed out.) But Mackintosh hopes we can all get past that.
“Sex, I know,” he sighs, when we meet for a quite unsexy afternoon tea in a central London hotel. “It’s easy for people to focus on that word and think that’s what it’s all about, but really the programme is about relationships, love, family and our perceptions of what’s to come. But obviously sex is important,” he adds, “because sex is a big part of their marriage.”
Filming the intimate scenes wasn’t uncomfortable in the slightest, he says. Not like they can be. In fact, the sex in Wanderlust isn’t of the kind we’re generally treated to on television. It’s clumsy and error-strewn, all fumbled clasps and miscommunications. It’s real; and it’s between people over 40.
“That’s what I loved about it. It’s not a generic, air-brushed version of sex. That would push me away,” he explains, adding that there’s “an awkwardness” that makes Alan and Joy’s trysts all the more realistic.
The questions that Wanderlust raises haven’t often been explored in such a frank way on television before. Most notably, it touches on the idea that it’s perfectly possible to be in a happy, stable marriage and simultaneously wish for more: that even with the best will in the world, the flame in the bedroom can dwindle.
“Joy loves Alan, and is committed to a fantastic life together, with a great home and great children, but it’s about whether we can feel more alive. The day-to-day stuff is all well and good, but she’s searching to feel passionate again,” Mackintosh says. “Alan is invested in the marriage too, but while he doesn’t want to break things up, he’s feeling the same things. Intimacy has never been more difficult for them. It’s about the journey of rediscovering each other.”
Mackintosh knows it may prompt some awkward glances across sofas around the country, but he doesn’t necessarily see that as a bad thing.
“It could start some conversations, and that will be interesting…” he says, arching an eyebrow. “We’re talking about regular people with regular lives, and that question [about monogamy] is brave to be challenged. There’s much food for thought, and potential for people to be having a conversation in their heads that they can’t quite bring themselves to have out loud.”
For Mackintosh’s part, he “knows where he stands on it” and has been happily married for 29 years to the actress Lisa Jacobs, with whom he has two daughters.
“My wife has seen it all and loved it. Fortunately, she’s is incredibly insightful, so she was able to see it for what it is, but she said herself that it might create some honest chats,” he says. How about the girls, aged 22 and 26? “Oh, my daughters haven’t seen it yet, so I don’t know how they’ll deal with it. I would imagine they’ll find certain scenes… challenging to watch, but they’ll appreciate the humour.”
To some, the issues Wanderlust puts forward can be bracketed under the term “midlife crisis”, but Mackintosh believes they could affect anyone. “Midlife is chosen because people might be juggling a lot – dealing with children and older parents with health issues, and reflecting on where they are in all this, and whether they’ve achieved what they want. In reality that could be any age.”
Mackintosh turned 50 last year, which he “wasn’t exactly jumping up and down about”, though he doesn’t look it: he has the same floppy hair and boyish looks he had in the Nineties.
“I feel good. I’ve had waves in my life when I’ve thought, ‘Is everything all right? Can I be doing better than this?’ But it didn’t necessarily happen at 50.”
He bought a narrowboat recently, parking it in Oxfordshire and hopping aboard whenever he feels like getting out of London. It is his most clichéd midlife purchase to date – there were no rash trips to Ferrari showrooms, nor hastily rolled joints (Alan does the latter in Wanderlust) smoked around the big birthday.
“No, no, none of that,” he laughs, “but I did continue to buy quite a lot of records. I am obsessed,” he says, lost in imagined joy. Vinyl is, of course, eminently cool again, and he has passed his love of music down to his daughters. The eldest, Martha, acted throughout her teens and early 20s (twice with Mackintosh), but has decided against carrying on, while 22-year-old Blythe has just returned to the family home in North London after graduating from university.
At the moment, there’s a lot of Elton John being spun on the record player as Mackintosh will be seen next as Stanley Dwight, Elton John’s father, in Rocketman, a biopic directed by his
Lock, Stock co-star Dexter Fletcher. “I’m very lucky to have done a lot of different things,” Mackintosh muses. “I’ve never had a game plan, and that’s the best way. Who knows what the future holds?”
Ideally, it holds promising things for Wanderlust. For now, Mackintosh will sit tight and wait for Tuesday’s reaction. If there aren’t too many mugs of tea spilt, Ofcom complaints lodged and quickie divorces filed, there are rumours of a second series.
“You just have to wait and see with these things, but we all hope so, because there’s a lot of love and passion in this one…” he says, before a smirk creeps over his face. “A lot of love and passion in many ways.”
Wanderlust begins on BBC One on Tuesday at 9pm
‘People have conversations about monogamy in their heads that they can’t have out loud’