‘Naked Homophobia’: a play that revisits the first BBC program about gay men in the 1950s | stage

The barrister Lord Hailsham told the BBC in 1954: “All the homosexuals I have known have been very anxious, like alcoholics, to spread the disease from which they suffer.”

Other contributors to the BBC’s first ever program on male homosexuality largely agreed. One Church of England moralist warned any “pervert” who might have been listening to “temporary attachments, disillusionment, and loneliness in his old age.”

Educationalist John Wolfenden recommended a “healthy and normal” home life as “the best kind of prevention against all sorts of problems of this kind.”

The subject of homosexuality, which was then a crime, was so taboo that the final radio program was shelved until a heavily edited version was broadcast on the home service three years later.

It was then forgotten until historian Marcus Collins rediscovered the original text. The script has been brought to life for a new BBC stage play The First Homosexual, which will tour England in February as part of LGBT+ History Month.

The play tells the story of the radio show, highlights the experience of gay men in the 1950s and explores themes that still resonate today, including so-called conversion practices.

Collins, professor of contemporary history at Loughborough University, said there were a number of gay “scandals” in the 1950s that made headlines and led to debates about whether there was a need to suppress “immorality” or decriminalize.

“The BBC saw the uproar and thought that as a voice of balance and authority, it should say something specific about homosexuality,” Collins said.

Playwright Stephen M. Hornby had access to the script and other archive material, including internal BBC diaries and audience letters after the edited broadcast in 1957.

“The overwhelming message I got from reading it [the original script] It was either nudity, and the homophobia of people like Lord Hailsham. “Or the more liberal voices that say conversion therapy works, you should at least try it — and if not, you can live a quiet life of abstinence and not do anything that would scare horses,” Hornby said.

The program was presented by C.R. Hewitt, later president of the Homosexuality Law Reform Society, who in the program described homosexuality as “a kind of infantilism” and “a state of arrested development”. Wolfenden, one of the participants, later wrote a report recommending decriminalization.

The only gay voice on the programme, titled “The State of Homosexuality”, was an anonymous “reformed homosexual” who believed in the value of “sheer force of will” to sort people out.

Collins also discovered that the programme-makers had tried to engage the author of a major, albeit anonymous, Sunday Times article on the subject.

The author of the article was described as “the wife of a Midlands businessman and mother of three children.” In fact, it was Mary Whitehouse who wrote: “It may seem strange for a woman to write about homosexuality. But I think many mothers suffer from the fear that their children will be tempted or mutilated, through no fault of their own.”

Whitehouse, who later became a household name for her crusades against “filth,” did not participate. But she will appear as a character in the play, which tells the story of Tom, a 19-year-old who works as a tailor for Burton in Manchester.

The BBC’s director general decided not to broadcast the program after internal discussions, including whether it could increase homophobia. Collins said another argument made was simply that “the BBC doesn’t talk about sex”.

When the revised version was broadcast in 1957, the backlash was so great that bosses made the decision to have no more programs on the subject “except for special purposes and special occasions,” Collins said. “They say we covered the Wolfenden report, and that’s the end of the homosexuality debate… and there’s nothing more to say.”

The play will open in Salford before touring. The plan is to hold question and answer sessions afterward.

It’s a story that goes back 70 years, but audiences may see contemporary echoes, including in the theme of conversion practices, which goes back, at least tangentially, to the BBC with Matthew Hyndman’s involvement in Traitors. Hyndman tried it and helped found a campaign group to ban conversion practices.

“We hope to have some interesting conversations with our audience about conversion therapy and why government after government has announced they will ban it. And no one has,” Hornby said.

Hornby said the new play was a development of a “30-minute proof-of-concept handwritten mini-script” done three years ago. It will premiere at Salford University’s New Adelphi Theater on February 4 before touring to Birmingham, Brighton, London, Liverpool and Loughborough.