Interview with Julian Sands (Caspar)
An interview with Julian Sands, who plays Caspar
Published: 20 July 2017
Caspar is an art dealer. A functionary in the overall story, but significant and interesting.
What made you want to be a part of Man In An Orange Shirt?
I was attracted by the intelligence of the writing - its depth and sensitivity, and the importance of the themes. l like very much the pan-generational story, and of course l thought Caspar had style, flair, and presence and would be interesting to play.
Tell us more about him
Caspar is an art dealer. An ‘homme du monde’ with energy, flair and taste. A deep knowledge of the arts and an appetite for life. A functionary in the overall story, but significant and interesting.
How does he differ from other roles you’ve played?
Caspar differs from previous role in that he is fresh, original, contemporary… and promiscuous.
What sets Man In An Orange Shirt apart from other dramas?
It will stand apart because of its epic spread of time, yet its intimate and emotional themes. Because Man In An Orange Shirt is two parts rather than six, there is a compelling intensity and depth to it.
Who should be turning in to Man In An Orange Shirt?
Everyone who is interested in contemporary life should watch.
Complete the sentence: Man In An Orange Shirt is…
An honest and moving love story.
An introduction, by Patrick Gale
My commission to write this show couldn’t have been more fortuitous: Commissioning Editor Lucy Richer let it be known she was after a script reflecting gay male experience in the 20th century, which ideally would have the flavour of a Patrick Gale novel.
Happily she said this to Kudos’s Sue Swift, who just happened to be an old friend from my days of bridge addiction. With such a vast subject, I had to find an involving, intimate story within it and, as with so many of my novels, this was a fragment of narrative from my own life.
When my mother was pregnant with me and preparing for us to move - from Camp Hill Prison on the Isle of Wight to Wandsworth, where my father was to become governor - she found a stash of personal letters hidden in his desk. At first she was amused, assuming they were from an old girlfriend he’d never mentioned, then horrified, as she realised they were from an old school and university friend who had been his best man.
In real life she destroyed the letters, terrified he’d be arrested for what was then an imprisonable offence but also disgusted because, in her ignorance, she assumed this meant he was a paedophile. In true buttoned-up English fashion, she never let him know what she had discovered.
What I’ve done in Man In An Orange Shirt is to take that scene of discovery and wind backwards, imagining the two men’s impossible love for each other being shipwrecked on the demands of respectability and the law. And then I’ve wound forwards from it, imagining what would have happened if my mother had instead confronted my father with the discovery. Readers of my novels will know I’m a psychotherapist manqué, fascinated by the effects of secrets and lies within a family.
Man In An Orange Shirt takes those secrets and lies and imagines the long-range damage they might do if the understandably embittered wife of episode one went on, in episode two, to find that her grandson was yearning for the fulfilment her late husband had never known.
Although it’s brilliant that transmission will coincide with the BBC’s celebration of the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967, I hope this is much more than just a drama about gay men and their difficulties.
I hope that its two love stories will touch people simply as love stories, and that the torments and frustrations in the family I portray will set viewers wondering about their own ancestors, grandparents and parents - and what secrets and lies they might be concealing.
GK
