#robin cape

Despite all that, ‘hints’ are dropped about Robin’s health. But what do they consist of? To be precise, three other characters make insinuations about Robin’s health – which Robin either ignores or subtly resists. The question of his ‘well’ness is raised three times – three people all comment (gratuitously, and pointedly) that Robin looks ‘well’:

1) The TV drama producer Frank (Neil Pearson), who refuses to commission Robin’s gay-drama script – and whom (Robin’s parting questions suggest) may also be gay (or bisexual) but is now (hetero) married.

2) Belinda (Rachael Blake), the dinner-party hostess, and the wife of Robin’s old friend Roger (Tom Beard).

3) Crudest of the three, dinner-party guest Natasha (Phoebe Nicholls). Natasha is the only one who pushes this further to strongly insinuate (but still not state directly) that Robin has HIV. She comments ominously that Robin looks well ‘considering’, and that his illness means he can no longer go (gay) clubbing. Robin responds that none of them at the dinner party (gay or straight) go clubbing any more because they’re too old – but, as we know, Robin has just been cruising.

This pattern is (I think) open to more than one interpretation. (Either Robin is living with drug-controlled HIV. Or, actually, he isn’t, but the heteronormative characters assume, stereotypically, that if a gay man has been ill he must have AIDS.) Within CJ, Robin’s HIV status is never confirmed. But whether or not Robin actually has HIV, the bigger point is that he encounters a series of supposedly ‘enlightened, liberal’ middle-class characters who voice heteronormative assumptions about gay men which are actually prejudices – which Robin (subtly) resists or challenges. (My theory is that Robin functions as a kind of avatar for CJ’s writer Kevin Elyot himself – making the role a really interesting and important one for Rupert.)

All the characters who comment on Robin ‘looking well’ are either heterosexual or (the ironically named Frank!) possibly closeted. And the unfolding Theo (Luke Treadaway)–Tim (Joseph Mawle) plotline eventually shows us that the character who is most outspoken about Robin’s health – Natasha – is a person who over-dramatises, overreacts, and jumps to conclusions. She uncritically accepts local rumours that Tim is a dangerous paedophile, and rushes to ‘save’ her ‘baby’, Theo, from Tim – even though CJ makes it 100% clear to viewers that Theo actively seeks, and instigates, sex with Tim (to the extent that under-age Theo tops the older man).

In short, the character who most strongly insinuates that Robin might be ill due to HIV is shown to have unreliable judgement (and to easily believe rumours) – while Robin’s non-responses, and other conflicting evidence (Robin’s casual sex with Julian), leave open the possibility that Robin’s illness was something else and that he isn’t even HIV positive.