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Jonathan Bailey understands the uses of the charm offensive. As Sam, the handsome Lothario of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s delightful pre- curio, ; Anthony, the romantic hero of ’s second season; and John, the jerk of a protagonist in Mike Bartlett’s love-triangle play , the English actor, 36, has swaggered up to the precipice of superstardom. With roles in such Hollywood studio tentpoles as and on the horizon, he may just break through.

Yet he delivers career-best work in US TV network Showtime’s queer melodrama , as Tim Laughlin, an anti-communist crusader turned gay-rights activist, by leaving behind the self-assured rakes and tapping a new wellspring: soft power. Tim may be, as Bailey puts it, “an open nerve”, but as it turns out, the devout Catholic and political naif – who falls for suave US State Department operative Hawkins “Hawk” Fuller (Matt Bomer) just as US Senator Joseph McCarthy tries to purge the federal government of LGBTQ people – is formidable. Stretching from the Lavender Scare – a moral panic in mid-20th century America about homosexual people in the government which led to their mass dismissal from government service – to the depths of the Aids crisis, in scenes of tenderness, cruelty and toe-curling sex, Bailey’s performance communicates that little-spoken truth of relationships: it takes more strength to submit than it does to control.



The former demands discipline, courage, trust; the latter requires only force. But any doubt about .

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