White Heat feels like the show that will bounce them all into full-intensity red-carpet stardom, much as the outrageously successful Our Friends in the North did for Christopher Eccleston, Daniel Craig, Gina McKee and Mark Strong in the 1990s, andState of Play and Skins did for so many in the 2000s. The drama is an intimate yet epic BBC Two thriller from writer Paula Milne, of The Politician's Wife and Small Islandfame. Milne dripped her own life into the ambitious script, which follows the lives of seven friends from 1965 to the present, starting out as flat-share students in London and ending sprawled in the wreckage of love, loss, drugs and politics 40 years later. Imagine following the cast of Fresh Meat over the next four decades. The actors all say they're lucky to play complex characters over decades of adventure; Milne says, 'Me, I think we are lucky to have them.'
Claflin plays prime mover Jack, the rebel with a cause who just happens to be rich enough to own a large house in Tufnell Park, which he lets out to new students he finds interesting. He interviews hundreds, saying he's planning an ambitious social experiment forged in 1960s' idealism to create a perfectly formed commune where everything, even sexual partners, is shared. 'You have to feel sorry for him,' Claflin grins. 'He starts off like a freedom fighter and ends up as everything he hates. He recruits like he's got a list of stereotypes: the Asian gay guy, the black guy, the techie, the feminist… One from each group to see what happens. You'd expect it to go wrong, of course, but actually the flat share is the best bit for him.'
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