“You’ve never seen these characters on screen before – two older Black Caribbean men telling their coming out story.”

Ariyon Bakare is talking about new BBC One drama Mr. Loverman (you can add your own ‘shabba’), the story of Barrington Walker and Morris De La Roux’s secret love affair which started during the 1950s in Antigua - and is still being covertly conducted sixty years after they emigrated to London as part of the Windrush generation.

Tired of living their respective lies, they decide that their twilight years are going to be spent under the same roof and in the same bed.

First, though, Barrington needs to confess all to his wife, Carmel, who’s long-suspected him of cheating on her – just not with a man.

“When this part came along there was no way I was going to say ‘no’ to it!” Ariyon tells me. “Lennie James, who plays Barry, did a voiceover for a series I wrote back in 2004 called Stealing Lives and it was always a dream of mine to work with him again because he’s one of the best British actors out there. He was always doing work that I wanted to do like the play A Raisin In The Sun, which I went to see and thought, ‘I could never be as good as he is in it!’ He’s got this great strength and an emotional quality running through everything he does. Lennie’s also an intelligent actor, which made my scenes with him in this show an easy step forward for me.”

A face you instantly recognise without necessarily knowing the name, James’ diverse range of credits includes 24 Hour Party People, Blade Runner 2049, Fear The Walking Dead, Line Of Duty – he played the seriously dodgy DCI Tony Gates – and the upcoming Mufasa: The Lion King.

Asked to describe the occasionally happy but more often than not frustrated couple, Ariyon who plays Morris with the same deftness he’s attributed to his co-star, says: “Barrington is a successful businessman and has a family. He’s been married for over forty years and is frightened to come out and for them to be who they want to be. Intimate same-sex relationships only became legal in Antigua where he’s from in 2022 and were a criminal act in some parts of the UK until the early 1980s. The taboo about gay relationships isn’t just historical – there are twelve countries including Nigeria and Jamaica where they’re still illegal. Which makes it very difficult for any Black person, regardless of where they’re living, to tell their truth.

“Morris is more relaxed about it all but has been let down before by Barrington and doesn’t believe that he’s going to make the break with Carmel who also has her secrets.”

As funny as it is moving, Mr. Loverman also features a brilliant turn from Tamara Lawrence as Maxine Walker, Barrington’s youngest daughter whose wannabe fashion designer life he’s funding. Among the many other banes of his existance are Carmel’s homophobic bible-bashing friends, AKA ‘The Bitches of Eastwick’, who never miss an opportunity to have a judgemental pop at him.

“As in Bernadine Evaristo’s source novel, there are lots of different strands to the story, which needs telling,” reflects Ariyon. “At one screening, a young queer man said, ‘I didn’t know this happens to older queer men.’ That’s what you want to do – move people and start conversations, which Mr. Loverman does.”

Ariyon’s own acting teeth were cut on the long-running BBC soap, Doctors.

“It was one of the best training grounds anyone could have at the beginning of their career,” he notes. “I was there for four years and by the end of it was writing and directing episodes. You had to work fast and second takes were frowned upon! It’s a shame that’s now been lost because there’s nothing else in the industry like it.”

The 53-year-old’s passion for his craft was fostered by the black and white movies he watched growing up in East London with his dad.

“One of the actors who’s been seminal in my career is Sidney Poitier,” he reveals. “To Sir With Love, Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner, In The Heat Of The Night, Lilies In The Field… he told stories which were about generational Black experiences and how one was always battling with the other, like I did with my dad – and how you move forward. As a kid I remember thinking, ‘I want to be an actor who’s as eloquent as him, I want to speak like him, I want to be like him!”

As a Sidney Poitier obsessive myself –he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama and mourned when he died in 2022 by Joe Biden – I can confirm that Bakare brings the same nuance, authority and believability to his roles that the American did.

Ariyon’s other passion as a child was dancing, which was what aged seventeen took him to a New York that had yet to be cleaned up by Rudi Guiliani.

“I’d been seduced by the vision of New York I’d seen in Alan Parker’s Fame – people dancing on these gritty streets and doing whatever needed to be done to become a star,” he recalls. “I was up near 42nd Street one day when I heard a gunshot and whilst simultaneously being petrified thought, ‘Oh my god, I’m in New York living and breathing it!’ There was so much creativity in the city at the time, which I just sucked up.”

Returning home and deciding he wanted to be an actor rather than a hoofer, Ariyon managed to score a bit part in 2008’s The Dark Knight.

“This was my first movie and I said to the director, ‘I shouldn’t be here, I don’t know what I’m doing!’” he winces. “That should have been the cue to send me home but, no, he was very encouraging. At a cinema screening afterwards, he tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘Look, you’re in it! We didn’t leave you on the cutting-room floor.’

“My bit in The Dark Knight is when they’re on the ship and are all worried that it’s going to be blown-up. It took three days to shoot, during which time I went totally off-piste with my improvisation. I suddenly thought I was the star but, yeah, it was really exciting to be part of such a big production.”

A few years after that, Bakare entered the Whoniverse in a 2015 episode, The Woman Who Lived, starring then Doctor Peter Capaldi. The lion-esque humanoid he played, Leandro, has gone on to become a cult fan favourite.

Ariyon Bakare as Leandro

“I was in make-up for that for five hours. I can’t say the next thing I’m doing but…”

Er, I think we can guess! After a nightmare year in which he lost his mum and his sister and ended up homeless for four months, Ariyon mustered the energy and the money to head over to Los Angeles where he was soon appearing alongside Jack Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson and Ryan Reynolds in 2017 sci-fi horror flick, Life.

“I’d lost some people very close to me and decided it was time to take myself out of England and go somewhere else again. So, much later than most actors of my generation I went to L.A. where my first audition was for Life. I had a final screen-test coming up when on April 1 the director rang and said, ‘No need to come in, you’ve got the part’. I, of course, thought this was a friend playing an April Fool’s joke on me and was like, ‘Shut up, fuck off!’ He called me back and said, ‘No Ariyon, you’ve got the part!’”

Since then, the starring roles have come thick and fast with Bakare probably best-known pre-Mr. Loverman for his portrayal of Lord Boreal in His Dark Materials.

Ariyon as Carlo Borea in His Dark Materials

“That was such a deliciously mean and sinister character to play,” he concludes. “Two of my fellow cast members were Irish – Andrew Scott who’s a very good guy to work with and Simone Kirby who I can’t wait to see in the Kneecap movie. I’m very lucky with the roles that have come my way.”

We’re very lucky with the roles that have come his way too!

• Double episodes of Mr. Loverman can be seen on Monday nights at 8pm on BBC One and on the BBC iPlayer.