BBC America joins Gatiss’s Queers

BBC America has become a coproduction partner on a BBC series directed by Sherlock’s Mark Gatiss that explores the history of homosexuality in the UK.

Mark Gatiss

Queers comprises eight short films and sees established writers responding to the 50th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexual acts in the UK. It is being curated and directed by Gatiss and produced by BBC Studios’ Pacific Quay Productions.

The eight monologues explore poignant, funny, tragic and riotous moments of British gay history and the personal rites-of-passage of UK-based gay men through the last 100 years.

The shows are written by Matthew Baldwin, Jon Bradfield, Michael Dennis, Keith Jarrett and Gareth McLean, who are writing for television for the first time, alongside established screenwriters Jackie Clune, Brian Fillis and Gatiss.

Sarah Barnett, BBC America president, described the show as “a unique and affecting series of short films about the British gay experience. Brilliantly written and performed, these monologues may be compact but they are brimful of humour, heartbreak, joy, humanity and tenderness.”