Queers (BBC-4 2017, Ben Whishaw, Russell Tovey)

Queers is an anthology series that is curated and directed by Mark Gatiss. Queers sees eight new and established writers respond to the 50th anniversary of The Sexual Offences Act which partially decriminalised homosexual acts between men. The series will be broadcast as part of the BBC’s Gay Britannia season this summer.

Taking in 1957’s Wolfenden Report, the HIV crisis and the 1967 Sexual Offence Act itself, the 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.

In The Man On The Platform, Ben Whishaw (London Spy, Spectre) returns from the trenches of the First World War, whilst 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 War and A Grand Day Out, each examining the very different attitudes and social changes in gay men’s lives over the century.

The plays 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.

Queers is being produced in partnership with The Old Vic Theatre who will stage all eight of the monologues in July, in the run up to the television transmission. Tickets for the live staging are on sale now, with casting to be announced.

key behind the scenes crew
Mark Gatiss as Writer / Director
Pauline Law as Executive Producer
Matthew Baldwin as Writer
Jon Bradfield as Writer
Michael Dennis as Writer
Keith Jarrett as Writer
Gareth McLean as Writer
Jackie Clune as Writer
Brian Fillis as Writer

show type
anthology drama series

broadcast from
In production
8×15 minute episodes

network and production companies
BBC Four – BBC Four Studios