The Line of Beauty

I watched the first episode of the line of beauty last Wednesday (17th May) and I personally enjoyed it. I, myself am only 22 years old and so I was born in the eighties but obviously don't remember it. The story follows one man through his sexual awakening in amidst all the fake glamour of the 80's Tory government. The political side of it is interesting to watch, but the main focus was watching Dan Stevens character (Nick Guest) meeting other men. I have not seen Dan Stevens before in anything else, but from now on I will be on the look out for anything else he appears in. His crystal clear blue eyes, and the way he plays the character's naiveté (in the first episode anyway) is well done. I will definitely watch the next two episodes and may even read the book if I can get hold of it. I recommend tuning in, (espically if your gay) for the sex scenes alone but also for the clever portrayal of the Thatcherite years and how it both destroyed and made the country we are all living in today.

Okay, so it may seem unfair to review The Line of Beauty after having only seen Episode One, but the sneaky peek on show last night at the London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival gave every indication that this adaptation of Alan Hollinghurst's Booker Prize-winning novel is a classic in the making.

Everyone who has read the novel will have his or her own impression of the characters and locales. (I lived in Notting Hill for more than a decade, so my mental picture of the story was probably more vivid than most.) But within minutes of the bravura opening sequence (grafted onto the novel by canny adapter Andrew Davies), director Saul Dibb makes Nick Guest's world his own.

What I found so extraordinary about this adaptation (or at least the first episode) is how cleverly Davies has mined the novel for humour, social commentary and romance. On- screen representations of the upper-middle-classes tend to show us the wholly implausible world of PG Wodehouse, but without Wodehouse's wit, or stick the knife in with bitter class hatred. The Line of Beauty does neither; showing us the Fedden family warts and all. Gerald Fedden MP (in a stunningly good characterisation by Tim McInnerney) is quite the pompous paterfamilias, but is also generous, funny and kind.

As our "eyes and ears" through the story, newcomer Dan Stevens is pitch-perfect; his clear, blue eyes miss nothing as his life becomes more and more entwined with the Feddens and their glittering world.

The clips shown of the following two episodes promise no decline in quality, so if The Line of Beauty does not come quite as close to perfection as Brideshead Revisited - which remains the high watermark of British television drama - it is still shaping up to be landmark adaptation, and not to be missed when it premieres on BBC2 later in May.

A naive young man falls in with a wealthy Tory politician and his family in 1980s Britain.

Wonderful adaptation of Hollinghurst's novel, expertly cast. The greed, selfishness, hedonism, ignorance and bigotry that for many sums up the Thatcher era are all on display as Stevens' innocent abroad Nick is drawn in and swept away by the Feddens family. Even as we see Nick become an almost indispensable member of the family, so we know his sweetness and ingenuousness must surely be his undoing...

Stevens is brilliant, effortlessly capturing the essence of the well-meaning and ingratiating Nick, and he is formidably supported by all concerned, from the key players (McInnerny, Atwell, Krige) to the host of fantastic cameos on display. A must-see for anyone who came-of-age in Thatcher's Britain.

One of the rare movies / series in which the romantic aspects of the novel get a perhaps superlative treatment as they deserve. Allan Hollinghurst's novel has a special significance to me, but that is beside the point here. The film has a special appeal, a nostalgia, a remembrance of things past to which the music deserves particular praise. There is no other film that I can remember that moves me to such a degree. Yes, I was there, in the London of those years. Yes, I was lonely and yearning for some human touch. Yes, it all comes back. It's hard to describe, for those of you who did not live those times. This is a true gem to be treasured and revisited whenever your daily life seems unbearable. Dan Stevens is the innocent hero of his life. He may have become a better known actor later on, but this is his defining moment and film.

The Line of Beauty is in some ways a social, LGBTI drama amidst high-class politics in the UK. Without Thatcher's reign there would be no The Line of Beauty for sure. It's also about class, and the lines of class that grew during the Thatcher years.

The Line of Beauty has impressive production values, and I'd love for a sequel set in the Blair years. For the sequel I nominate acclaimed British actor Danny Dyer to play the lead role.