Channel 4 has unveiled the schedule for its 50 years of Pride celebration – which will include specials of Celebrity Gogglebox and Naked Attraction in addition to a host of one-off documentaries.
According to the broadcaster, the season of landmark programmes will “reflect on the incredible achievements and challenges of advancing LGBTQ+ rights and visibility over the last half-century, while also platforming the diversity of identity and sexuality in the 2020s”.
The line-up includes two new factual commissions: 50 Years of Pride, a landmark documentary on the history of the movement in the UK, and April Ashley, the first in-depth feature documentary on the titular trailblazer for trans women in the UK.
The former programme was made in collaboration with Oscar-nominated filmmaker Stephen Daldry and playwright Joe Robertson and is told through first-person testimony and archive footage, hearing from both those who faced intense hostility and discrimination 50 years ago and from those of a younger generation.
Meanwhile, the latter will focus on April Ashley, who died last year at the age of 86, and was one of the country’s most prominent transgender women – a model, dancer and restaurateur whose rollercoaster life took her from the slums to wartime Liverpool to a world of celebrity friendships.
The two documentaries – which are 90 minutes and one hour long respectively– will both be broadcast around the anniversary of the first UK Gay Pride Rally, which was held in London on 1st July 1972.
The Celebrity Gogglebox Pride Special will see a mix of series favourites join some of Britain’s best-loved LGBTQ+ personalities – including Rylan and his mum Linda, Nick Grimshaw and his niece Liv, and Paul Sinha and his husband Oliver – while there are also special compilations of Naked Attraction and First Dates celebrating some of the memorable LGBTQ+ contributors across both shows.
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And later in the year a new two-part documentary – with the working title Outed: George Michael and the Fight for Freedom – will re-examine the pop icon’s 1998 outing as a gay man and how he refused to be ashamed.
There will also be a special collection of content made available on All 4 that “reflects on how Channel 4 has been at the forefront of pushing LGBTQ boundaries with ground-breaking programming”.
Meanwhile, Film4 and Channel 4 will be showing a number of films exploring LGBTQ+ representation, including My Beautiful Laundrette, Buddies, Rocketman, God’s Own Country and Love, Simon.
Louisa Compton, the channel’s Head of News, Current Affairs, Specialist Factual and Sport, is overseeing the Pride season and said: “Channel 4 has been responsible for more outstanding LGBTQ+ content over its 40 years than any other public service broadcaster – often commissioning content others wouldn’t touch, from award-winning dramas It’s A Sin, Queer As Folk, and Brookside to innovative factual stories including Football’s Coming Out, Genderquake, and Hollyoaks: Gay Dads Forever.
“It only seems fitting that at this important moment for LGBTQ+ history in the UK we do what we’ve always done, double down on our commitment to agenda-setting programming with exciting new commissioning and All 4 firsts. The announcement today is only the start of the Channel’s year-round Pride celebration – plenty more to come in due course.”
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