The new short 8 part film series Queers will premier October 14th to bring awareness to the 50th Anniversary of the Sexual Offenses Act. The Sexual Offenses Act partial decriminalized homosexual acts between men in the UK. Mark Gatiss (Sherlock) directed and curated the film series with award winners Alan Cumming, Ben Whishaw, Rebecca Front, Russell Tovey, Gemma Whelan, Ian Gelder, Kadiff Kirwan and Fionn Whitehead. Taking in 1957’s Wolfenden Report, the HIV crisis and the 1967 Sexual Offence Act itself, the eight monologues will explore some of the most poignant, funny, tragic and riotous moments of British gay history and the very personal rites-of-passage of British gay men through the last one hundred years.
Sarah Barnett, BBC AMERICA President, commented, “Queers is a unique and affecting series of short films about the British Gay experience. Brilliantly written and performed, these monologues may be compact but they are brimful of humor, heartbreak, joy, humanity and tenderness.”
In The Man On The Platform, Ben Whishaw (London Spy, Spectre) returns from the trenches of the First World War, while a hundred years later, Alan Cumming (The Good Wife) reflects on gay marriage in Something Borrowed.
More Anger finds Russell Tovey (Him and Her, Being Human) playing a gay actor in the 1980s, and Rebecca Front (War and Peace, Humans) contemplates her very particular marriage in Missing Alice.
Gemma Whelan (Game of Thrones, Decline and Fall), Kadiff Kirwan (Black Mirror, Chewing Gum), Ian Gelder (Snatch, Game of Thrones) and Fionn Whitehead (Dunkirk, HIM) appear respectively in A Perfect Gentleman, Safest Spot In Town, I Miss The Warand A Grand Day Out, each examining the very different attitudes and social changes in gay men’s lives over the century.
The films are written by Matthew Baldwin, Jon Bradfield, Michael Dennis, Keith Jarrett, and Gareth McLean, who are writing for television for the first time, alongside established screenwriters Jackie Clune, Brian Fillis and Gatiss himself.
The series is produced by BBC Studios Pacific Quay Productions and is a co-production of BBC and BBC AMERICA.
BBC AMERICA is a hub of innovative, culturally contagious programming including the worldwide phenomenon and critical darling Planet Earth II, top-rated science-fiction phenomenon Doctor Who, fan-favorite Orphan Black, groundbreaking unscripted series Top Gear, buzzy and wildly bizarre Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency starring Elijah Wood, as well as the upcoming series Killing Eve from Phoebe Waller-Bridge, and Blue Planet II, the next chapter in the epic story of our planet. A joint venture between BBC Worldwide (the commercial arm of the BBC) and AMC Networks, BBCA’s influential shows have attracted critical acclaim and earned Emmy® Awards, Peabody Awards, Critics’ Choice Awards and Golden Globes®. Created in 1998, the irrepressible network has garnered one of cable’s most curious, educated and affluent audiences, with many properties boasting super-fan levels of engagement. Available through cable, satellite TV and streaming services, BBC AMERICA broadcasts in both standard and high-definition. Get caught up, BBCA offers full episodes On Demand across all major digital platforms, BBC AMERICA app and bbcamerica.com. Follow @bbcamerica.
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