THEGAYUK

Category: TV

  • House Of Cards trailer hints at same-sex relationship for Frank Underwood

    The new trailer has hit social and it very briefly hints that Frank’s bisexuality might be coming out.

    **spoiler alert** if you’ve not watched the first or second or fourth season do not read beyond here.

    So it seems as though Frank Underwood might be letting his sexuality flourish in season 5 of House Of Cards. The brand new trailer has been launched and there’s a very, brief moment of same-sex activity. Blink and you’ll miss it though.

    His previous man-friend, his bodyguard Edward Meachum, died in series four, but now it seems there’s another man on the horizon for Frank Underwood.

    Watch the trailer below

    The new series is out later this month.

     

  • Channel 4 announces season of programming for the 50th year of gay decriminalisation

    Channel 4 will be marking the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in the UK by broadcasting a raft of programming to celebrate LGBT life in the UK.

    A number of landmark productions are set to be broadcast on Channel 4 as it marks 50 years since homosexuality was decriminalised in England and Wales.

    Not Guilty charts the stories of some of the 15,000 British men criminalised for offences under long-defunct anti-homosexuality laws. Epidemic (working title w/t) reveals how an unlikely coalition of gay campaigners Tory politicians, and pioneering doctors came together to fight AIDS in the 1980s – and changed Britain forever in the process. In 50 Shades of Gay (w/t) Rupert Everett, in a series of surprising encounters with gay people of all ages, delivers his own personal take on the changes in gay life and culture that have happened in Britain in the past 50 years. And Coming Out (w/t) reveals how while campaigners were battling Parliament for legal reforms,  the real frontline in the fight to win acceptance for gay culture was the arena of pop music.

    Rob Coldstream, Commissioning Editor, Special Factual said,

    “History can tell us as much about the present day as it does about the past and I’m thrilled to announce this slate of programmes – its incredibly wide ranging but at its heart is brilliant new journalism, and a fresh lens onto the past that offers new insights into our own times.”  

  • TV | Coming Out, Channel 4

    Coming Out

    Broadcaster: Channel 4

    Broadcast Date: TBC

    Production Company: Alley Cats TV

    After homosexuality was legalised 50 years ago, this is the story of how it was pop music that won the battle for hearts and minds, and made it OK to be gay.

    While politicians and protestors focused on legal reform, another struggle was going on – the battle for hearts and minds. The fight to win mainstream status for queer culture was waged, and won, by a group of pioneers who used popular music as the stage for a revolution. Put simply: it was pop music that made it OK to be gay. Channel 4 marks this momentous anniversary with the story of the fearless & flamboyant artists– from global icons to hidden heroes – who used pop music as gay culture’s Trojan Horse, seducing us all with a soundtrack to die for.

  • TV | 50 Shades of Gay, Channel 4

    Fifty Shades Of Gay

    Broadcaster: Channel 4

    Broadcast Date: TBC

    Production Company: Swan Films

    Rupert Everett charts the changes in gay life and culture over the last fifty years, from men in their eighties who cottaged with palace guards, to young transgender people coming out as the ‘only trans in the village’ in rural Britain.  Since 1967 much has been achieved in terms of openness and acceptance, but have some of the things that Rupert most wants to celebrate about gay culture – its rebelliousness and outsiderness, for example – faded in the process of assimilation into the mainstream?

  • TV | Epidemic, Channel 4

    Epidemic

    Broadcaster: Channel 4

    Broadcast Date: TBC

    Production Company: Blast Films

    Epidemic (w/t) This landmark film tells the uplifting story of how an unlikely coalition of Tory politicians, pioneering doctors and gay men came together to fight a deadly disease with no cure – and how Britain was changed forever by the battle against AIDS in the 1980s.  Together they overcame a homophobic press, the ignorance of the medical establishment, and the outright hostility of Margaret Thatcher, in order to create a campaign that would change hearts and minds about AIDS – and gay men.  Not only did their effort stem the tide of the AIDS plague – but by making us talk publicly about sex in a new way, they helped to create a more liberal Britain – that has lasted until today.

  • TV | Not Guilty, Channel 4

    Not Guilty

    Broadcaster: Channel 4

    Broadcast Date: TBC

    Production Company: Testimony Films


    Not Guilty tells the stories of some of the 15,000 British men living with criminal records for offences committed under long-defunct anti-homosexuality laws. On 1    st February 2017 the government passed a new ‘Alan Turing law’ granting pardons for those convicted – but some are refusing to accept a pardon, demanding instead a full apology.  At the heart of the film are emotional testimonies of persecution long after the 1967 Act first began to decriminalise homosexuality in Britain.

  • TV | Storyville – Queerama, BBC 4

    Storyville – Queerama

    Programme Length: 70 mins

    Broadcaster: BBC 4

    Broadcast Date: TBC

    A BBC Storyville BFI archive film about a century of gay rights, desires and history with a soundtrack by John Grant and collaborators.

  • TV | Queers, BBC 4

    Queers

    Programme Length: 15 mins x8

    Broadcaster: BBC 4

    Broadcast Date: TBC

    Eight new and established writers respond to the 50th anniversary of The Sexual Offences Act in Queers, a series of monologues curated by Mark Gatiss.

    Focussing chiefly on the gay male experience, the monologues begin in 1917 with ‘The Man on the Platform’ – the story of a soldier returning from the trenches of the First World War and reflecting on both his attraction to another man and a very particular childhood memory. Other stories include Jackie Clune’s ‘A Perfect Gentleman’ in which we meet Bobby, a dandy with a very unexpected secret and Brian Fillis’ More Anger’ which examines the journey of a young gay actor in the 1980s.

    Taking in 1957’s Wolfenden Report, the HIV crisis and the 1967 Sexual Offences Act itself, these 15 minute monologues will mark and celebrate some of the most poignant, funny, entertaining, tragic and riotous moments before and after the ’67 Act and the very personal rites-of-passage of British gay men through the last 100 years.

    Queers is being produced in partnership with The Old Vic who will stage all eight of the monologues in July, in the run up to the television transmission.

  • TV | Gluck, BBC 4

    Gluck

    Programme Length: 60 mins

    Broadcaster: BBC Four

    Broadcast Date: TBC

    British artist Gluck (Hannah Gluckstein) was a well-known painter of the 1930s who painted aristocrats, judges, socialites and flower arrangements. The British establishment, including the Royal Family, flocked to her shows. What is perhaps surprising for the time is that Gluck also dressed as a man, had numerous female lovers and called her exhibitions ‘one man shows’. So what did 1930s upper-class society make of Gluck? This film tells the untold story of a celebrated artist who defied the gender and sexuality definitions of her time.

    From the use of the word ‘invert’ in Hall’s infamous book The Well of Loneliness to the word ‘sapphist’ used by upper-class bohemians in the 1930s, female homosexuality wasn’t clearly defined in Gluck’s time – the word ‘lesbian’ not yet widely used. As well as Gluck’s personal story, this film explores the modern British history of female homosexuality and its representation in culture, literature, fashion and art – from fashion glamorising of an androgynous look to Gluck’s most iconic painting Medallion, a double portrait of herself and her lover Nesta Obermer, which Gluck called her  ‘marriage portrait’.

    With exclusive access to part of the Gluck archive, the film will include interviews with Gluck’s relatives, official biographer Diana Souhami and leading experts in fashion, art and sexual politics alongside Gluck admirers including Sandi Toksvig.

  • TV | Prejudice and Pride: The People’s History of LGBTQ Britain, BBC 4

    Prejudice and Pride: The People’s History of LGBTQ Britain

    Programme Length: 60 mins x 2

    Broadcaster: BBC 4

    Broadcast Date: TBC

    In this unique series, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people from across the country have been digging out and sharing the mementoes and memorabilia that changed their lives over 50 years since the landmark 1967 Act decriminalised homosexuality.

    The result is a crowd-sourced collection of some of the rarest, most personal, most heartbreaking and inspiring artefacts in our history; a banned book, a nun’s habit, a passport, an original Heaven Gold card, naval discharge papers, George Michael’s autograph and the long lost panels from the AIDS memorial quilt.

    Produced by 7Wonder and presented by comedians Stephen K Amos and Susan Calman, the films chart a rollercoaster journey – from the audacity of a Gay Liberation Front commune, to the anguish of the AIDS crisis, from the struggle against Section 28 to the ecstasy of Pride ’97, from the death of friends in the Admiral Duncan bombing to the joy of a lesbian marriage – this is the story of all of us, the people we loved and the people we sometimes hated.

    From being locked up for daring to love someone, to marrying that same person 50 years on, this extraordinary history is told by ordinary people through their personal stories and most treasured possessions.

  • TV | imagine… Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures, BBC 2

    Imagine… Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures

    Programme Length: 105 mins

    Broadcaster: BBC 2

    Broadcast Date: TBC

    imagine… presents Look at the Pictures, an unflinching and uncompromising portrait of one of the 20th century’s most controversial photographers: Robert Mapplethorpe, directed by Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey. His 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 and still lives and flowers, but not without controversy. His iconic and unmistakable photographs of 1970’s 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.