"An act of defiance"

Byker Grove may have launched the careers of Ant & Dec, but it was at least the first kids' TV show to feature a gay kiss. Or so I thought, until I read this Guardian article - an edited excerpt from Scott Bryan's book Out Now: A Queer Journey Through Modern Television.

In it, Bryan recounts the convoluted history of Two Of Us, a drama written by Leslie Stewart that was due to be shown in schools in 1987 but ended up being shelved thanks to the poisonous anti-LGBTQ+ climate created by HIV/AIDS paranoia and Section 28. As with the controversy stirred up around Channel 4's broadcasting of Tony Harrison's poem V the same year, it just goes to show that the culture wars were being fought then as now.

Two Of Us was finally screened in 1988, but only in an edited form and at 11.30 at night. What's particularly remarkable, however, is the fact that director Roger Tonge subsequently defied the censorship, managing to get the kiss scene reinserted for both overseas sale and for a repeat daytime screening in 1990 without BBC bosses realising.