As you may have spotted, the BBC is marking the 50th anniversary of the decriminalisation of male homosexuality with an extended gay season. (And if you haven’t, I can only assume you’ve seen and heard no BBC trailers for months.) The centrepiece this week was Against the Law (BBC2, Wednesday), which dramatised the story of Peter Wildeblood, a Daily Mail journalist imprisoned for 18 months in 1954 for the possibly overlapping crimes of buggery and gross indecency. But — double entendre alert — Wildeblood didn’t take this lying down. After his release, he published a book making the case for legalisation.
In the central role, Daniel Mays captured Wildeblood’s reluctant journey into the spotlight perfectly: his touching nervousness before going into a gay pub; his sense of wonder when he bagged himself a RAF corporal; his feelings of betrayal and humiliation when the corporal in question was coerced by the police to testify against him in return for indemnity.
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