Mr Loverman review – magnificent TV that will tear your heart open

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
Lucy ManganMon 14 Oct 2024 21.30 BSTLast modified on Tue 15 Oct 2024 11.02 BSTShareMr 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.
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”.
View image in fullscreenShe yearns to be loved … Carmel Walker (Sharon D Clarke) and Joan (Amanda Ryan) in Mr Loverman. Photograph: Des Willie/BBC/Fable PicturesBarry 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.
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Mr Loverman aired on BBC One and is available on BBC iPlayer
Mr Loverman by Bernardine Evaristo (Penguin Books Ltd, £9.99). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.