Rupert Everett, Kieron Richardson, Mary Portas to star in ’50 Shades of Gay’ documentary on gay life in Britain
Rupert Everett and Mary Portas will star in a new series of documentaries titled ’50 Shades of Gay’, released to mark the 50th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Britain.
The documentary, broadcast on Channel 4, will examine gay politics, social life, culture, and family life since 1967.
Gay actor Rupert Everett, who has starred in Shakespeare in Love, Stardust, and The Chronicles of Narnia, will discuss his personal views on gay life in Britain.
One section, called ‘Britain’s Great Gay Buildings’, will feature broadcaster Mary Portas – who is in a same-sex marriage – guiding viewers around British buildings that housed extraordinary moments in gay history.
Business consultant Portas, who was asked by former Prime Minister David Cameron to lead a review into the future of Britain’s high streets, was one of the first people in the country to convert her civil partnership into a marriage in 2014.
Simon Callow, Lord Maheed, and Anna Richardson will also star in the programme.
In an online-only show aimed at younger views, Hollyoaks star Kieron Richardson will feature in ‘Raised by Queers’, which will explore parenting in Britain’s LGBT community.
Richardson recently delighted many Hollyoaks fans last month by having a pair of twins with his husband Carl, conceived through IVF.
Announcing their birth, Richardson wrote on Twitter “Welcome Chase and Phoebe Rae”, accompanied with photos of the twins’ hospital bracelets.
In another documentary, ‘Not Guilty’ will look at the many gay men who continued to face persecution, even after gay sex was decriminalised in 1967.
‘Epidemic’ will chronicle the coalition of gay campaigners, Tory politicians and doctors who fought Aids during the 1980s.
And ‘Born This Way’ will examine how pop music changed hearts and minds by bringing gay icons into the living rooms of Britain.
The 50th anniversary of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act – which legalised gay sex between consenting men aged over 21 – is being celebrated in a number of ways across Britain’s the LGBT community.
In February a banner was unveiled in Parliament’s Westminster Hall to celebrate the occasion.
The National Trust, meanwhile, has launched a countrywide exhibit to explore the “hidden LGBT histories” of its properties.
The Trust is also releasing a new podcast series and a new guidebook exploring the LGBTQ heritage of its properties.
