Here Comes J. Edgar! has a brash poster featuring a cross-dressing FBI agent in fishnet tights with his thighs splayed aggressively towards the viewer. He points a warning finger as if to say, ‘Enjoy this show or go to jail.’

The abrasive imagery aligns with the arrogant tone of most LGBTQ advertising but the show itself has a more humane and playful temper. Harry Shearer and Tom Leopold have written a superb tragicomedy about a powerful homosexual who wants to conceal his love life while hunting down America’s most notorious criminals.

The problem with the Widdecombe suspect’s ‘fair trial’

Burnham is already drifting towards defeat

Inside the Green party’s defence battle

We first meet Hoover as he lies in a hospital bed flanked by two chain-smoking nurses who discuss his health while filling the room with tobacco fumes. This quietly amusing scene sets the mood. Hoover muscles his way to the top of the FBI and falls in love with a handsome junior, Clyde, whom he appoints as his lifelong assistant – effectively a marriage proposal.

His secretary walks in and finds the couple in a clinch which Hoover explains away as a martial-arts hold. Later, she tries to flirt with him and he responds........

© The Spectator