Gays on TV: Your guide to the week’s best LGBT TV and film
Here's what's on the box this week.
By Will Stroude
We know it’s sunny outside, we know there are Pride events to keep you busy, but when you just feel like putting your feet and relaxing, there are a few decent programmes to watch on TV.
So here is the first in a regular update of what’s on in the week to come…
It wasn’t so long ago that no one could imagine Sky would be home to anything that showed gays in a positive light but that’s all changed and these days you can catch Call Me By Your Name (Sky Drama, Weds 18 July, 8pm). And you can go one-up on those who saw it in the cinema: no one will complain if you watch with a peach in your hand.
If you’ve already seen that, a film that’s more likely to have slipped by you is Just Charlie (Sky Drama, Tues 17 July, 9.50am). It tells the story of a gifted teenage footballer for whom life and success look mapped out. But all is not as it seems.
Serial killers seem to hold a strange fascination for gay viewers and World’s Most Evil Killers (Sky Living, Sat 14 July, 9pm) features the particularly creepy and gruesome John Wayne Gacy – who murdered at least 33 teenage boys or young men in the 1970s.
Meanwhile, camp classic Cruel Intentions (Sky Movies Drama, Fri 20 July, 12.25am) has Sarah Michelle Gellar in top bitchy form, kissing Selma Blair, and Ryan Phillippe in, well – in one scene – nothing at all!
While not overtly gay, no one will complain surely at seeing Dylan O’Brien and Thomas Brodie-Sangster all sweaty and sometimes topless as they take on the evil corporation WCKD (mainly in the form of Queer as Folk’s Aidan Gillen) in the network premiere of Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (C4, Sat 14 July, 10.35pm).
And with the Mamma Mia! sequel set to take the cinema by storm, catch Mamma Mia Mania: The World’s Greatest Musical (C5, Fri 20 July, 10pm), which features interviews with the film’s co-writer Catherine Johnson, cast members and some celebrity fans.
Words: Hugh Kaye