Our very talented Chelsea Allen on tumblr has written a brilliant and in depth character for Maurice Hall.

See a short taster below:

Maurice Hall is brave, so declares his friends at school. ‘A great mistake—he wasn’t brave: he was afraid of the dark. But no one knew this.’

In Edwardian England, Maurice grows up in the suburban upper middle class, with a bright, friendly face, and a good build, although he is not too colossal at games nor at schoolwork. As a boy, he has a distinct sense that he’s being lied to, when his teacher, drawing diagrams on the sand, explains to him the sacrosanct matter of sex. While at his next school, he moves in a most tormenting darkness. What his subconscious hints at makes him believe it’s a lone curse that’s befallen him: a dream, wherein he plays football with a naked George, once a garden boy for the Halls. And a second dream, which speaks to him of a friend whom he does not find in waking. To conceal his mind full of carnal thoughts—his mind which he believes to be most vile, to present himself as a rather empty creature, he’s unkind to his sisters and, because he believes school necessitates it, unkind to his schoolfellows, even the boys therein around whom ‘he would laugh loudly, talk absurdly, and be unable to work.’

Once in Cambridge however, Maurice discovers that in leading others to see he’s dimensionless, he’s been deceiving himself about their nature. People are alive, he sees, with real insides, not vile as his own but insides all the same. And now he softens. It was against his nature to be cruel. He finds Risley, his senior, to be a man with an eccentric inside. Upon meeting him, Maurice, still in undiminished, inarticulable darkness, feels not a want of him as a friend, but that he might be able to help him in some way. And it is in search of him one evening that Maurice Hall meets Clive Durham, and finds himself dwarfed by an intellect which bares his own pretenses, thereby igniting both admiration and self-doubt. Over the terms, he feels the growing intimacy of their friendship, and, to impress Clive, bluffs about Christ’s doctrines to demonstrate that he thinks too. When Clive challenges his beliefs, his defense falls short, but he scarcely minds it, as all this successfully lets Clive maintain an interest in him. The reason why he cares for this interest Maurice desists asking himself. But he does face it, in a most agonizing revelation showing him the beauty he could have had, after Clive has professed his love for him, and he’s acted coldly: ‘Durham! a rotten notion really—’. He faces that he loves, has always loved, men.

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James Wilby found his career stalled for a while – so thank God for Poldark!

• James Wilby talks about a career resurgence after he appeared in BBC’s Poldark
• He first earned acclaim for his role in the taboo-breaking film Maurice in 1987

Kissing Hugh Grant changed James Wilby’s life. The sight of the two handsome young actors locked in a passionate embrace in Merchant Ivory’s taboo-breaking film Maurice in 1987 launched the careers of the unknown Hugh and James, who played the lead, 31 years ago.

‘We didn’t throw ourselves into it – we hurled ourselves into it!’ says James. ‘When Hugh later became very famous with Four Weddings And A Funeral, he was asked who was the best kisser he’d had – he said “James Wilby”!’

Hugh and James got hundreds of letters from people saying the film had changed their lives, and they jointly won Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival. ‘We drank most of a bottle of Scotch that night on Hugh’s balcony,’ recalls James.

‘We talked more that night than we ever did while filming. I took myself very seriously, but Hugh was lighthearted. I’ve come round to Hugh’s way of thinking. You have to take it all with a pinch of salt – and I was too earnest.’

Maurice was set in an implacably homophobic Edwardian society, and it was a role for which James is well-known. He’s resisted being typecast, veering from Howards End and Gosford Park to Casualty and Midsomer Murders, but he couldn’t turn down this latest role of Lord Falmouth in Poldark.

Based on a real figure in late 18th-century Cornish politics, Falmouth was the one who spotted maverick Ross Poldark’s potential and persuaded him to stand for election following the shock death of his nephew and heir Hugh Armitage, who was Demelza Poldark’s secret lover.

Tomorrow night’s episode is the last of this series – and it ends on a particularly heart-wrenching note.

‘The show is so well written,’ says James. ‘Actors get the plaudits, but I’m only as good as the script.’

He felt the same about ITV’s Victoria, in which he played Sir Piers Gifford, ‘a rather revolting reactionary character’. But there’s a mutual respect between Falmouth and Poldark.

‘Falmouth constantly gives Ross rollockings – he needs them! I think there’s a father-son thing going on there,’ says James.

From 12 September, James will be directing a stage version of Maurice in a purpose-built theatre called Above The Stag in London’s Vauxhall. ‘I’ll depict Edwardian society as even more repressed than in the film, you’ve got to get the audience imagining the fear,’ he says.

‘Practising homosexuals could be sent to jail with hard labour, as Oscar Wilde was.’

There are telling parallels between Maurice and A Very English Scandal, Hugh Grant’s recent series about Jeremy Thorpe, despite the two being set 50 years apart. ‘It was a wonderful performance by Hugh – it’s the first time I’ve seen him completely transform himself. I was so proud of him,’ says James.

A generous man who doesn’t begrudge another’s luck, James has impressed as everything from Don Juan to Lord Mountbatten and the Queen’s father George VI without achieving Hugh’s level of stardom. He admits he would have loved to have played Lord Grantham in Downton Abbey, the role taken by Hugh Bonneville, after James had worked with its writer Julian Fellowes on Gosford Park.

‘But Hugh was brilliant,’ says James. ‘I’d been sent the script, but he was cast before I could meet the makers.

‘You have to take so many knocks in this business. In my late 40s and early 50s, my career wasn’t going as well, and it got to me.

‘But I thought, “What will happen will happen.” Someone said my problem was that I refused to pigeonhole myself, because you have to be known for something.

‘But acting is all about playing different parts. And I’ll do anything, I’m a complete tart! I’d like to play leading-man roles, but if I don’t, so what?’

His family are his strength. He and wife Shana have four children – Barney, 29, Florrie, 26, Nathaniel, 22, and Jesse Jack, 17.

For 18 years they lived in Camilla Parker Bowles’s childhood home in East Sussex, a Grade II-listed rectory called The Laines, which they sold in 2014 for £3.5 million.

‘I’ve seen actors spend a lot of time away and it’s only a matter of time until home isn’t important to them any more,’ says James. ‘If you miss important stages of your children’s life, you never get them back.

‘My wife has been behind me all the way, pulling up the slack when I was away – which was a lot. There was a point when I wasn’t a very good father because of it, but I’ve made up for it.

‘Playing guitar with all of my kids and two of my best friends till 5am for my birthday this year was one of the most joyous evenings of my life.’

For all the ups and downs of his profession, he is content. ‘You think filming is glamorous, but the only glamour is the awards ceremonies and premieres.

‘I don’t give a monkey’s about materialism; I love nature and beauty so I’ll pay a bit for that. We have a long view to the South Downs where we live and it’s so beautiful here, really special.’

James was known for baring his body, so does Aidan Turner’s Poldark have competition? ‘You saw my buttocks a lot in my early career,’ he laughs. ‘But there’s no flesh shown by me in Poldark!’

Resource: Daily Mail