Writer Patrick Gale is best known for writing books such as Notes From An Exhibition and A Place Called Winter, but now he’s going to be writing for the screen. The BBC has commissioned him to write a two-part gay love story, the first part set in the 1940s and 1950s and the second in the modern day, called Man In An Orange Shirt.

Gale seems pretty excited about the whole thing, commenting, “Man In An Orange Shirt is the most exciting screen project I’ve worked on to date: an original drama exploring strands of gay male experience since the 1940s. It has been such a privilege to be given such an open brief and then allowed to run with it.

“I don’t want to give too much away but after much experimenting, we’ve ended up with two hour-long films – one set in the 1940s and 50s, one set in the violently contrasted present; one depicting a love story made impossible by pressures from society, one a love story nearly derailed by the long-term fallout from the 1940s story. People who know my novels will be unsurprised to hear that that stories give equal focus to wives and mothers and are very much about tensions between family bonds, the need to be good and the urge to seize happiness.

“I hope they’ll appeal equally to straight and gay viewers, but also that they’ll leave either side feeling challenged about things they take for granted.”

There are now more exact plot details, although Gale comments suggest it will at least in part deal with gay love during an era when homosexuality was illegal, with the second part looking at how the the ways people dealt with those pressure are still being felt today. We also don’t know when we might see the shows.

Diederick Santer, Executive Producer for production company Kudos adds, “I’m so proud to be sharing an original work from Patrick Gale with the BBC One audience. Man In An Orange Shirt is a treat – both epic and intimate, and as touching and entertaining as it is thought-provoking.”