There’s a fair bit of broad telly drama acting in this 80s-period movie from first time British feature director Georgia Oakley, set in the homophobic era of Margaret Thatcher and the notorioussection 28 of the Local Government Act. In fact, the film sometimes feels something like Russell T Davies with some Prisoner Cell Block H thrown in. But it’s certainly forthright, with some soap-operatic force.
In the style of other Maggie-era Britfilms of the moment, characters seem to start their day listening intently to prim-voiced BBC radio newsreaders regaling them with the latest Thatcherite travesty, and connoisseurs of the time might groan or cringe at the TV clip Oakley uses here of Tory peer and historian Lord Beloff, banging on in the upper house about the utter superiority of the heterosexual family unit.
