BBC Two
Programming on BBC Two
Published: 24 April 2017
Against the Law (1 x 82)
Daniel Mays (Line Of Duty, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Public Enemies) stars in BBC Two’s powerful factual drama as Peter Wildeblood, a thoughtful and private gay journalist whose lover Eddie McNally (played by Richard Gadd), under pressure from the authorities, turned Queen’s evidence against him in one of the most explosive court cases of the 1950s: the infamous Montagu Trial.
More than ten years before the partial decriminalisation of homosexual acts in 1967, Peter Wildeblood and his friends Lord Montagu (Mark Edel-Hunt) and Michael Pitt-Rivers were found guilty of homosexual offences and jailed.
With his career in tatters and his private life painfully exposed, Wildeblood began his sentence a broken man, but he emerged from Wormwood Scrubs a year later, determined to do all he could to change the way these draconian laws against homosexuality impacted on the lives of men like him.
The drama also features Mark Gatiss (Taboo, Sherlock) as Wildeblood’s prison psychiatrist Doctor Landers; and Charlie Creed-Miles (Ripper Street, Peaky Blinders) as Superintendent Jones.
Woven through this powerful drama is real-life testimony from a chorus of men who lived through those dark days, when homosexuals were routinely imprisoned or forced to undergo chemical aversion therapy in an attempt to cure them of their "condition". There is also testimony from a retired police officer whose job it was to enforce these laws, and a former psychiatric nurse who administered the so-called cures. All of these accounts serve to amplify the themes of the drama and help to immerse us in the reality of a dark chapter in our recent past, a past still within the reach of living memory.
Pictured above: Eddie McNally (Richard Gadd) and Peter Wildeblood (Daniel Mays)
In his first screen drama, best-selling British novelist Patrick Gale tells two gay love stories, 60 years apart - stories linked by family and a painting that holds a secret which echoes down the generations. Featuring a cast including the Oscar-winning actress Vanessa Redgrave, Man In An Orange Shirt charts the challenges and huge changes to gay lives from the Second World War to the present.
In 1944, British Army Captain Michael Berryman (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) meets war artist Thomas March (James McArdle) in Southern Italy while chaos reigns all around them. Despite having a young fiancé, Flora (Joanna Vanderham), waiting at home for him, straight-laced Michael finds himself falling for Thomas’ bohemian charms. In 2017, an ageing Flora (Redgrave) looks on as her grandson, Adam (Julian Morris), tentatively forms a relationship with his client Steve (David Gyasi) in a more accepting world. But while the external obstacles have fallen away, a minefield of internalised issues and dangerous temptations still line the road to happiness.
Further cast includes Laura Carmichael, Julian Sands and Angel Coulby.
Patrick Gale says: “As a lifelong BBC Two animal, I’m thrilled my first original television drama will broadcast there. The wide social ramifications of the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality are still being felt today and had huge implications not only for gay men (those over 21 at least) but for marriage. The two parts of my drama try to show how far-reaching those ramifications were and I know the rest of the Gay Britannia season will as well. I can’t wait to watch every bit of it.”
Diederick Santer, Executive Producer for Kudos, says: "It's been a delight to work with Patrick and the BBC on this timely and highly original drama. I'm thrilled with the cast we assembled and the ambition of the production, and look forward to it playing at the heart of the Gay Britannia season."
Profile Of Patrick Gale - w/t (1 x 30)
To coincide with his first television drama, BBC Two profiles the bestselling novelist Patrick Gale. In this film we meet Patrick at home in his idyllic Cornish setting and hear how Man In An Orange Shirt is based on true events in his own family life. Patrick Gale is a prolific writer and the programme also hears about his other work - both fact and fiction - and the importance he places on capturing the truth.
Patrick Gale said: "I’m very excited at the prospect of being the subject of a profile documentary, which I know is going to explore not just the recurring love and family themes in my novels, but will tell the startling story of my parents’ marriage and show how it provided not just the germ for Man In An Orange Shirt but for my ongoing obsession with relationships, secrets and lies.”
What Gay Did For Art (1 x 60)
This film invites a stellar cast of interviewees from across the arts to reflect on the contribution of lesbian and gay people to British cultural life since the decriminalisation of male homosexuality 50 years ago.
Ranging broadly across popular culture, the visual arts, literature, theatre and film, the programme celebrates how the British arts, before 1967 and since, have been a haven to those growing up creative and gay.
The film considers how artists' sexuality might have shaped their art, often giving it a unique outsider’s perspective on British life, and a sometimes subversive sense of wit and style. Artists produced sophisticated work that excited audiences with its “otherness”, bringing new types of characters to television and film, gender ambiguity to pop music, and glimpses of bohemia in the visual arts. These have remained driving forces for British art to this day.
But the film also asks whether growing acceptance has been to some extent a double-edged sword for artists themselves. Has homosexuality's move towards the mainstream made the exploration of queer themes less urgent and less interesting? Now that there's a wide range of gay lifestyles on show in British culture, the question of how much an artist’s sexuality really matters to their art has become inescapable.
Is It Safe To Be Gay In The UK? (1 x 60)
In the three months after Brexit, an LGBT anti-violence charity reported a 147 percent rise in homophobic attacks. In this very timely documentary we explore some of the stories behind the headlines from the lesbian, gay and transgender people who have been attacked as well as the perpetrators, using testimony and found footage, to ask why this rise occurred?
Imagine… Mapplethorpe: Look At The Pictures (1 x 105)
An unflinching and uncompromising portrait of one of the 20th century’s most controversial photographers, Robert Mapplethorpe, directed by Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey.
Mapplethorpe's images elevated photography to fine art and pushed social boundaries to create a body of work which includes frank depictions of nudity, sexuality and fetishism as well as still lives and flowers - but was not without controversy.
His iconic and unmistakable photographs of 1970s New York’s underground gay scene were frank and unmediated depictions of a lifestyle at the time deplored by many Americans. In 1989, on the floor of Congress, Senator Jesse Helms implored America to "look at the pictures," while denouncing Mapplethorpe’s art.
Since his death in 1989 from Aids, Mapplethorpe’s work has remained as provocative as ever. Look At The Pictures delves deeply into Mapplethorpe’s life and work to reveal the man and images which ignited a culture war that rages to this day.
