Man in an Orange Shirt is a two-part BBC television series or coherent movie. Part 1 features the "forbidden love" of two soldiers immediately after World War II. It has a sad ending. I don't want to watch that, so I'll skip to Part 2, about a modern-day couple, Adam and Steve. Adam and Steve, like from the homophobic slogan: "God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, therefore you shouldn't be gay"? That's ridiculous! Is this a comedy?
No, a drama: "A minefield of internalized issues and dangerous temptations line the road to their happiness." In 2018?
Scene 1: Long close-up of an eye as Adam (Julian Morris, who didn't come out until he was 38) scrolls through a hookup app while walking down the street. He stares with a sinister expression, as if he's on his way to murder someone.
Cut to a long close-up of an elderly hand next to black-and-white photos of a man getting married and in a soldier uniform. It turns out to belong to Mrs. Flora, a woman with a man's haircut, reading the newspaper while her attendant brings pills. If she was married to the WW2 guy, she'd be well over 90 now.
Psych! Adam wasn't on his way to murder someone, he was just going to work. He doesn't even seem to hate his job as a veterinarian. After returning a dog to its kid, he sees his next patient, a cat owned by Steve (David Gyasi)
Adam and Steve? Come on, that's ridiculous.
Some stuff about a sick, meowing cat that I'm fast forwarding through.
Scene 2: And then Adam (left) and Steve have sex, but blurry, in weird angles, with obstacles in the way. The dialogue is "Yes! Yes! Moan."
Mrs. Flora's attendant leaves, with shepherd's pie in the oven for later, while Adam walks down the street with a bouqet of flowers. Either the sinister look is his natural express, or Adam hates everyone and everything.
He sits down to dinner with his grandmother, Mrs. Flora, and compliments her plate warmers. She thinks that he is mocking her. A bit paranoid, Gran? Then she criticizes his jacket.
They discuss how Gran did a good job raising him, as opposed to...his sister?...who is having twins and therefore reprensible? I'm not catching these British insult/compliments.
Gran notes that she deflects all of the busybodies who ask when he's going to settle down: "Some of us prefer our own company." Or you could just out him. You know that he's gay, right?
Dinner over, Adam leaves, but Gran stays at the table, looking despondent. You left her to do the dishes?
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Scene 3: In Adam's absurdly elegant London flat, he stands in the shower and tries desperately to scrub off a stain on his shoulder. I don't get it. This guy didn't appear in the last episode, so what is the significance of the stain? A reference to "Macbeth"?
He drops in to give Steve his dead cat's ashes, and finds a super-elegant apartment and a fey older boyfriend, Casper the Friendly Ghost (Julian Sands, below), who is annoyed but accepts the hookups as a necessary evil, required to have access to Steve's penis.
Adam tries to complement Steve's apartment and his job as an architect, but Steve find something wrong with each. Come on, dude, look on the bright side. You've got a great job, a great apartment in downtown London, a boyfriend who doesn't mind hooking up, and a tripod between your legs. Cheer up!
Scene 4: Adam having dinner with female friend Claudia and her husband David (Eddie Arnold, who died in 2008, leaving over 140 classic country-western songs. Aspiring actors might want avoid naming themselves after famous names, to make internet searches possible). They want to fix him up with swishy American drama teacher Dwight (Hal Scardino):
"So, how do you know Claudia?"
"She was my girlfriend at uni."
"Oh. I thought you were...um..." The word is "gay." Why is it so hard to say it?
"Um...,yeah...but..." "I turned him!" Claudia chirps in. Girl, don't say that, even as a joke. It gives the homophobes ammunition for their "Being gay is a choice" arguments.
Adam continues to be despondent, and sneaks in the back room to check his hookup app contacts. Just date the swishy drama teacher. He wants to ditch his friends for a hookup. Claudia checks his face and dick shots to make sure he's worth it -- "yeah, hotter than Dwight, go on."
Meanwhile, Gran is playing cards with her old-biddy friends. One leaves to use the loo, and the others gossip about "two dates" with a man -- to a hotel! Gran doesn't get it -- she hated sex, and was thrilled when her husband died and she didn't have to do it anymore. Maybe you just hated sex with men, dear. Try out the Daughters of Bilitis.
Scene 4: Adam trudges despondently through the busy streets as if he's on his way to a funeral instead of a hookup. Cut to him topping the guy, Bruno (Phil Dunster) -- all dark, nothing showing. Afterward Bruno complements him on his passion and tries an introduction, but Adam isn't having it: no names, no overnights, no "I'd like to see you again." While Bruno is in the bathroom, he zooms away to trudge despodently through the streets of London. I get the impression that the showrunner strongly disapproves of recreational activity. Even the participants hate it, and have to take six-hour long showers afterwards.
Scene 5: Adam fixes Gran's router while she heats up the food that her attendant prepared -- and complains about it, of course. I like complaining, too -- "here are the things I hated about it" is much more fun than "it was good." But lady, there are limits.
In other news, the letting agency said that the cottage needs too much work to be lettable (rentable?), so Gran wants to give it to Adam. In Britain, a cottage is a small house in a rural area with no land around.
"Besides, it will get you out of the city!" You got it backwards, Gran: gay men move into the city.
Cut to Adam walking despondently and then being despondent at work. He calls Steve -- for a date? No, to help him renovate the cottage. He's an architect, yeah?
The place is a horrible dump, with moldy wallpaper, holes in the ceiling, a hole in the bedroom floor, no heat, and depressing furniture from the 1950s. But Steve thinks it's "brilliant," a perfect fixer-upper. He's bored with "tarting up kitchens" and is desperate to "get my hands dirty."
More after the break.
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