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Dan Stevens,Oliver Coleman,Carmen du Sautoy,Kenneth Cranham,Tim McInnerny, Barbara Flynn,Alice Krige,Hayley Atwell,Don Gilet,Justin Salinger,Alex Wyndham,Elize du Toit,Joseph Morgan |
It's the summer of 1983 and Nick Guest comes to live with the Feddens. Gerald Fedden has recently been elected a new Conservative MP in a landslide victory for Mrs Thatcher.
It's the summer of 1986 and Nick is leading the sort of life he has always dreamed of. Safely installed as a member of the Fedden household, Nick is also a player on the London gay scene. The only thing he's unhappy about is his gorgeous boyfriend Wani's insistence on keeping their affair secret to protect his family's name. So long as his lifestyle is kept quite, Wani's quite happy to indulge to the full - persuading Nick to take part in a threesome after an afternoon at Hampstead ponds, for instance. Meanwhile, Gerald arranges a piano recital for his ghastly Tory pals. Both Wani's fiancée and his father attend the event, and Nick feels the pressure of his secret love affair more than ever.
It's the week of the 1987 election, and Gerald and Rachel Fedden set off for Barwick. Nick is left to look after Catherine, whose medication has left her in a depressive slump. Whilst working at Ogee, Wani's company, Nick is visited by Rosemary Charles. She brings awful news - her brother Leo died of AIDS three weeks previously. Nick is devastated. His mood is further depressed by a restaurant meeting with potential US backers of his and Wani's film project. On arrival, Wani's illness is obvious, and unsettles everyone. After his business partner and lover has been sick, Nick drives him home and says goodbye, for what seems likely to be the last time.
GAY INTEREST This excellently written and acted mini-series from the BBC, based on Alan Hollinghurst´s Booker prize winning novel about a gay man´s sexual and political awakening in ‘80s England is compelling viewing. In 1983, Margaret Thatcher's conservative government is cutting social services for the poor and giving huge tax breaks to the wealthy. England is turning into a nasty consumer culture and if you're not part of it, you're lost. Nick Guest (handsome newcomer Dan Stevens) is a working class gay boy who finds himself drawn into the wealthy and politically connected Fedden family, progressing from college chum of son, Toby (his object of lust), and guardian for their troublemaking daughter, Cat (the spunky Hayley Atwell), to a close family confidant. We follow Nick´s life through wild 80´s-style parties, luxury vacations in France and his love affairs with first a black bank clerk and then a Lebanese millionaire. Besides Nick's love life, which is quite juicy, we also track the family's emotional ups and downs over the next four years through sex and financial scandals, political double crossings and the pernicious inroads AIDS makes into '80s London.
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