Man in an Orange Shirt

It is far to be perfect. and that does to critic it very easy. but it gives the right story, using the right actors. and that saves a lot it. because it is a film about secrets, love and relationship. at first sigh, two films. different. with a common point. in fact, it is a film about family. from different perspectives. with wise manner to explore sensitivities, decisions, solitudes. sure, a BBC film is , always, decent to remarkable. but, in this case, the manner to define the honesty, the link between men from same family, in different periods, defining their "sin" in different ways, is more than admirable. and the end, the end has the status of changement about many things from the film. not as revelation. but as the detail giving precise form to sihouettes. so, I admitt : I love it !.

After watching episode one i couldn't wait for part 2 or hopefully more. A great cast and a good script make for a good night TV, and they truly were. There is so much LGTB stuff out there but not so much of a good quality, here how ever a very enjoyable story split over 2 generations with all the trimmings of the periods they portray. The only negative (little) point is that in part 2 it felt a little short telling the story of the relationship between grandmother and grandson, something was missing. Overall a great miniseries and I hope there will be more like this.

After I had seen the 1st part about the heartbreaking love story of the two lovers Oliver Jackson-Cohen as Michael Berryman and James McArdie as Thomas March, I was looking forward to see how their love story would be going on. Unfortunately it has actually stopped at the end of episode 1. Episode 2 is actually another gay love story about the grandson of Michael. You can say it is a drama crossing generations.

That is exactly the problem, two hours for two love stories is simply too short to achieve a better outcome. Especially the love story between Michael Berryman and Thomas March is simply too short and that I guess and believe most of the viewers would like to watch a longer story for that part. The casting of the two actors Oliver Jackson-Cohen and James McArdie for the two roles are really perfect. They have the chemistry as that pretty pair. Their acting is perfect, watching them in this film just feel like that they are a pair of real lovers.

On a contrary the casting of the love couple of episode 2 (Julian Morris and David Gyasi) is not good. They are good actors but there is no chemistry between the two at all. If one has seen the chemistry which Oliver Jackson-Cohen and James McArdie have delivered in episode 1, one will feel the difference like fruit juice and plain water.

Also the story plot of episode 2 is also weaker too. It does not bring out much passion and spirits. However with crossing generations story lines and add with warm family love and tie between grandma and grand son, it is in a way still a nice episode to watch. The grandma's acting is nice too.

In my opinion, if the complete series is in three hours or at least two and a half hour long (like most 80's mini-series) with a longer well crafted story for the first part and eventually also for the second part, plus a better match casting for the leading roles of the second part, it will surely be much better. I therefore give it 7 stars only.

The emotions, the love, the fear, the self-hatred, the harsh realities. I really loved it; however it felt incomplete, like we got part 1 and part 3 but they forgot to film part 2. Too many unanswered questions for a drama with this much emotional heft.

All together they are very beautiful stories. Unfortunately they are placed into two 1 hour parts. They needed about double the time to marinate in more storytelling. Each of the individual relationships were so complex I was left wanting to see them develop more gradually. Despite this, the excellent cast (and the director) do all that they can to avoid it all coming off clumsily. There is a lot of beauty on the screen, especially with part 1 of the two.

They were able to make me care about the characters and the parallels between the two accounts, but I think it could have been much richer by delving deeper into each of their stories.