Vanessa Redgrave, Julian Morris, and Oliver Jackson-Cohen act in the lead roles, directed by Michael Samuels.

Man in an Orange Shirt features two separate yet interwoven stories:[1] Part 1 tells of the obstacles that Western society is putting into the love relationship of the two veterans Michael and Thomas in the immediate post-war period.

In London today, a grandmother looks at an old photo of her deceased husband and remembers the beginning of their relationship in the turmoil of World War II.

In the 1940s, young Flora Talbot is a London teacher whose fiancé, Michael Berryman, is captain in the British Army, stationed in Italy.

Shortly before the birth of their son, Robert James, Flora finds a box of old love letters from Thomas in her husband's desk drawer.

A few years later, Thomas meets briefly with Michael in the presence of Flora and young son Robert, but their mutual feelings remain unspoken.

After Flora bequeaths Adam his grandfather's old cottage, he hires architect Steve, who lives in an open relationship with the older Caspar.

When Adam and Steve find the cottage painting by Thomas during the clean-up, Flora reacts with mock ignorance, though it is inscribed to her and Michael with a wish that it someday hang in their home.

This painting is the eponymous "Man in an Orange Shirt", a finished version of the study Michael saw at Thomas's mother's house.

The narrative is based in part on the family history of British best-selling author Patrick Gale; it was his screenplay debut.

Like Flora Berryman, Gale's mother had found a stack of love letters from a male friend in her husband's desk shortly after the end of World War II.