Mr. Loverman, the series of the week: being gay isn't always about having a super-super good time.

In 2025, putting homosexuality at the center of a series is a tricky task . Just as not being white or not being thin, not being heterosexual isn't necessarily a conflict. Forcing this can be downright victimhood. And it still happens. Furthermore, certain creators who, from a deep and modern activism, demand a necessary naturalization of LGBT characters, forget this demand in their own works, which yield to morbidity and navel-gazing.

This is not the case with Mr. Loverman , a British series recently released in Spain on AXN. Written by Nathaniel Price , this series has the homosexuality of its main character at its absolute center. And it is a conflict. Because although Mr. Loverman is set in a place as gay-friendly as contemporary London, its protagonist is a septuagenarian man of Caribbean origin trapped in a peculiar situation: married with two daughters, Barrington Walker has maintained a romantic (and sexual, let's not forget this) relationship for decades with another man, integrated into his family as a best friend comparable to another relative . A life structure bizarre in theory but perversely logical in practice.

Already in Bernardine Evaristo 's novel, which is the basis of the series, Barrington's position is clearly justified and explains how much her reality as a first-generation immigrant influences her. Indeed, for Barrington Walker, being homosexual is a major conflict. One that has nothing to do, as in the series and films of the 1980s and 1990s, with AIDS. Mr. Loverman also doesn't address "being gay" as a lifestyle, whether aspirational or not. What this series tells is convoluted by accumulation: its main character comes from a culture and is of an age where coming out isn't even considered that. Barrington Walker's letters are not very good.

Mr. Loverman is indefinable and original. Like its characters, it's forced to fit into its surroundings while simultaneously being proud of not quite doing so. In its surprisingly short episodes, this series is able to play with several tones at once. All of them are anchored, of course, in the exceptional work of Lennie James , who plays Barrington Walker at various moments in his life. Because Mr. Loverman is also a journey, perhaps not entirely reliable, through its protagonist's memories that shape his delicate current reality: father, patriarch, husband, man, homosexual, secretly in a relationship. Both Lennie James, hugely popular thanks to The Walking Dead , and Ariyon Bakare , who plays his secret partner, were awarded BAFTAs a few months ago. At that ceremony, James overtook Richard Gadd, the star of My Stuffed Animal , another series with non-heterosexuality integrated into its theme and plot in ways that are anything but obvious.

There's a narrative and cultural school of thought that argues that aspirational, lighthearted, and heartwarming LGBT stories are the ones that do the most to normalize (oh, how I hate that word) anything that falls outside the heteronorm. It's a very defensible position, and it's also compatible with other stories that explore the ages, cultures, and circumstances in which being a lesbian or queer remains problematic, even dangerous . Lighthearted comedies like "Impostura" can coexist perfectly alongside serious reflections like "My Stuffed Reindeer" or "Mr. Loverman ." The world, for better or worse, is made of nuances. So is being gay.