Rufus Stone (2012)

• 70%
• 2012
• Drama
• Josh Appignanesi
• William Gaunt
• Niall Buggy
• Lin Blakley

Based on social research into the older gay experience in rural south west England and Wales by the Bournemouth University School of Health and Social Care, the story dramatises the old and continued prejudices of village life from three main perspectives. Chiefly it is the story of Rufus, an 'out' older gay man who was exiled from the village as a youth and reluctantly returns from London to sell his dead parents' cottage, where he is forced to confront the faces of his estranged past. Of these, Abigail is the tattle-tale who 'outed' Rufus 50 years ago when he spurned her interest. She has become a lonely deluded lush. Flip, the boy Rufus adored, has also stayed in the village: a life wasted in celibacy (occasionally interrupted by anonymous sexual encounters) and denial (who is) looking after his elderly mother. But Rufus too isn't whole, saddled with an inability to return or forgive.