Against the Law
BBC TWO, 9.00PM
In 1954, journalist Peter Wildeblood was sentenced to 18 months in Wormwood Scrubs for “buggery”. On his release he chose not to hide from the society that had condemned him but instead to fight. His book about his experiences was subsequently described in the New Statesman as “the noblest, and wittiest, and most appalling prison book of them all”. It led to the Wolfenden Report on Homosexual Offence and Prostitution and to the legalisation of homosexuality in 1967.
Against the Law, then, is part dramatisation of Wildeblood’s story and part documentary about what it was like to be a gay man in this era. The fictional retelling is sensitively scripted by Brian Fillis (An Englishman in New York) and features a wonderful turn from Daniel Mays as the shy Wildeblood – who falls in love with a man only for it to collapse into shattering, heartbreaking pieces. Yet, good as the drama is, it is ultimately the testimony of those who lived through this that lingers. “Even now I sometimes pinch myself and think it is true. It has happened. I never thought the law would change. I never thought public opinion would change,” says one. The emotion is overwhelming. Sarah Hughes