Mr Loverman, based on the novel by the author Bernardine Evaristo will air on BBC One and iPlayer.
Lennie James will star as the exuberant protagonist, Barrington Jedidiah Walker, in the eight-part drama adapted by Nathaniel Price. Mr Loverman is a life-affirming story about family, love, and being true to yourself.
Lennie James:
“I can’t wait to get Barrington’s swagger on and help tell this crucial and complicated love story. As funny as it is sad. As full of heart as it is heartache…”
Barrington Jedidiah Walker, Esq. Barry to his mates. Trouble to his wife, his daughters, and his lover. Seventy years old, Antiguan born, exuberant Hackney personality, Barry is renowned for his dapper taste and fondness for retro suits. Carmel, his wife of 50 years, senses that Barry has been cheating on her with other women. Little does she know what’s really going on: a secret, decades-long passionate affair with his best friend and soulmate, Morris. Now entering the next chapter of his life, Barry has big choices to make that will force his whole family to question their own futures.
Bringing to life Bernardine Evaristo’s ground-breaking exploration of Britain’s older Caribbean community, Mr Loverman paints an incisive portrait of a family, exploring aspirations and regret, parenthood, and social expectations about sexual orientation and love.
Bernardine Evaristo:
“I am thrilled that Mr Loverman is being adapted into television drama. I love the idea of them stepping beyond the pages of the novel and into people’s living rooms and lives.”
Filming will begin later this year, with further casting to be announced in due course
