When Rosy McEwen was filming the Eighties-set lesbian drama Blue Jean, something strange started happening in the middle of the night. “I’d wake up and burst into tears,” says the actor, her icy blue eyes wide at the memory. “My breathing would start to go and I’d just sob uncontrollably. It happened a few times, and I didn’t even feel sad. There was just something that needed to come out.”

McEwen’s feelings were quite literally spilling out of her because, for every day of the three-month shoot, she was pushing down all the fear and frustration felt by her character Jean, a gay Pe teacher working in the time of Section 28. The law was brought in under Thatcher in 1988 to “prohibit the promotion of homosexuality” in schools. It had a crippling effect on queer communities and effectively slammed the closet door on generations of LGBT+ people.