Late Night Line-Up (1967)

Available for over a year

Ten years on from the Wolfenden Report and only weeks away from the passing of Sexual Offences Act of 1967 (which finally permitted homosexual acts between two consenting adults over the age of twenty-one), Michael Dean hosted a discussion about the two-part Man Alive TV programme on homosexuality, that had just been broadcast to the nation. The panellists, writer Maureen Duffy, social psychologist Michael Schofield, Conservative MP Ray Mawby and an unnamed general practitioner, debate whether it was appropriate to show the programmes at 8pm and question the broadcasts' balance in only including homosexual contributors. The conversation also covers wider issues, including people being blackmailed because of their sexuality, homosexuals working in positions of trust and the consideration that one in 20 people might be gay. At the time of this programme's broadcast, doctors were not allowed to be identified on BBC television in case this was interpreted as an advert for their practice. It is for this reason that the GP is not named here. (1967)