South (1959)

Peter Wyngarde stars in Britain’s earliest surviving gay TV drama.

The earliest surviving gay-themed British TV drama, South stars Peter Wyngarde as Lt Jan Wicziewsky, who visits a southern plantation as the American Civil War looms. The arrival of Eric MacClure (Gould) forces Wicziewsky to face up to his darkest secret: his love for another man. Barely two years after the Wolfenden Report, homosexuality was still taboo – making Wyngarde’s impassioned performance all the more extraordinary.