Airdate: The Night Watch

ABC1 will screen its second period British telemovie with sexual themes this month when it airs The Night Watch, a BBC production based on a novel by Sarah Waters (Tipping the Velevet, Fingersmith).

It follows three lesbian women, one straight woman and one gay man, their secrets, shames and scandals that connect them despite their different experiences.

Based on the novel by Sarah Waters, set against the turbulent backdrop of 40s London, The Night Watch tells the stories of four young people inextricably linked by their wartime experiences.

As air raid sirens wail, four young people find an invisible arena in which to explore their sexuality. Social conventions have been broken down and Kay, Helen, Viv and Duncan enjoy a freedom never experienced before as they engage in secret liaisons and passionate trysts.

The Night Watch opens in 1947 as Britain is trying to rebuild itself after the war. Kay is roaming the streets, haunted by a traumatic personal loss. Meanwhile, Helen and Viv run a marriage bureau, helping people trying to rebuild their shattered lives by finding love. But their complicated love lives are less easy to solve.

Helen obsessively clings to her tumultuous and volatile relationship with a married man from whom she seems unable to break free. Viv’s vulnerable young brother Duncan harbours a terrible secret, when a face from his past re-appears which threatens his fragile existence.

Moving back in time through the 40s into the middle of the Blitz, the lives, loves and losses of these four central characters are unravelled.

For them, the post-war victory is bitter sweet, for it returns them to the margins of society from which they hoped they had been liberated. In order to build their future they must each make peace with the past.

Stars Anna Maxwell Martin as Kay, Claire Foy as Helen, Jodie Whittaker as Viv, Anna Wilson Jones as Julia and Harry Treadaway as Duncan.

8:30pm Sunday, 20 November ABC1.