Virtual Branch Film

In the centenary year of the BBC, this Virtual Branch talk from Marcus Collins relates the strange tale of how the BBC did and did not broadcast about homosexuality in the 1950s and 1960s and what it tells us about sexuality, broadcasting and the origins of permissiveness in mid-twentieth century Britain. 

Marcus Collins is Reader in Contemporary History at Loughborough University and has been appointed AHRC/BBC 100 History Fellow for 2022. He is author of The Beatles and Sixties Britain (2020) and Modern Love (2003), co-author of Why Study History? (2020) and editor of The Permissive Society and Its Enemies (2007). Following his appointment as AHRC/BBC 100 History Fellow, he is organising a series of events commemorating the BBC’s centenary in 2022. These include collaborating with the Historical Association on a Teacher Fellowship Programme on Broadcasting and Society in 1960s Britain.