Michael and Liam

1978
Sound
51m

A suicidal teen and an openly gay youth strike up an unlikely rapport in a foster home

A camp, openly gay teen and a sullen, suicidal youth strike up an unlikely friendship in a foster home in this affecting drama. Liam has been in and out of care throughout his life, never finding a home that wants the admittedly difficult Scouser, while Michael's middle-class foster parents want him back, and are horrified by his new friendship. The ITV series Kids focused on different children in care each week, and refused to offer simple solutions. So it is with Michael and Liam - although the charm of their surprising rapport adds humour to the story, a sudden switch in mood in the last scenes shows that not all problems can be so easily solved.

Play about the relationship between two boys in care. Michael needs
help but is Liam, who is in care for soliciting, the best person to
provide it?

Queer Britain

This colourful and challenging collection explores screen representations of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender lives over the past century.

British cinema boasts a long history of carefully coded queerness, but for much of the 20th century explicit depictions of gay life in drama or documentary were more or less taboo. Gay men were subject to vicious state-sanctioned persecution, while lesbians were socially ostracised and the transgender community ignored and misunderstood. Cinematic and small-screen breakthroughs in the 1950s and 60s played their part in the public debate. Finally acting on the recommendations of the Wolfenden Committee a decade earlier, the 1967 Sexual Offences Act partially decriminalised male homosexuality in England and Wales, between two men over 21, in private. As those caveats suggest, the legislation remained problematic. But it was a step forward, paving the way for further battles - some yet to be won. From early glimpses of 'queer' characters, this collection charts the path towards '67 and beyond, through responses to the AIDS crisis to diverse reflections on queer life today.