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My Husband Is Gay

A bride and groom
  • Posted at 11:15am
  • 13 November 2007
  • by RhodriMarsden-RT
  • 10 comments

Since I started doing this blog, I've come to recognise the power of the programme title. In fact, if someone told me that a lot of the titles are thought up first, and then the programmes are built around them, I wouldn't be particularly surprised.

Sitcom titles, of course, have to shoehorn in a proverb or saying. Let's think...say, one about a mill owner, who dies and forgets to bequeath the mill, leading to all manner of wrangling and legal shenanigans among his close relatives, might be called Mills on Wills.

Documentary series, however, just have to go straight for the jugular with something eye-opening, preferably gruesome, and if possible containing the name of a celebrity. For example: Help Me, Ainsley, I'm on Fire. (This doesn't exist, although it really should.) But I'm getting sidetracked.

The point is that I plucked today's programme, My Husband Is Gay, out of the schedules for exactly the same reason I chose Help, I Smell of Fish, or Dirty Cows, or any number of others I've watched. A screaming tabloid title for a show that'll hopefully contain debauched or sensationalist scenes that I can then get all worked up and prudish over.

Fact is, though, My Husband Is Gay was both very moving and incredibly tragic. And has left me the impossible task of writing a light-hearted review, so I won't.

It took a non-judgemental, level-headed look at four couples whose lives had been turned upside down when the husband came out as homosexual. "That's weird," you might think, but a search on Google for the phrase "My Husband Is Gay" turns up 13,000 results, and look, there's even been a book written about it. So maybe the researchers didn't have to look too far to assemble this group who, between them, had wildly differing stories to tell.

Vijay is in his 50s, divorced his wife several years back, but kept the secret from his remarkably well-adjusted kids until they were teenagers. They now wear their dad's homosexuality as a badge of supreme cool, and accompany him to Gay Pride. It was never revealed, however, how Vijay's ex-wife had coped with the split.

Kevin was the only one of the four husbands who definitely knew that he was gay before he got married: he and Katie split five years ago, but she is still going through a process of grief, and he's burdened by enormous guilt.

Sarah and Matt have rebuilt their friendship after the revelation, but are now divorced. Dave and Sam, however, have stayed together, and generally seem to have the perfect marriage – except, of course, that he's gay. "We're the real Will & Grace," quipped Dave – although they've gone through a torrid time with friends and family, many of whom have completely ostracised them.

It's probably too much to hope that this kind of thing will eventually stop happening. You'd like to think that today's young adults who begin to realise that they're homosexual will be better informed and better supported than those who grew up 10, 20, 30 years ago.

But bigotry is still rife in many parts of the UK - certainly, anyone who ever got worked up about the issue of Section 28, the (now repealed) law that banned the so-called "promotion" of homosexuality in schools, would do well to watch this programme. And they'll see the emotional wreckage that's left behind when people are forced to live a lie – through no fault of their own.

My Husband Is Gay was on at 10:00pm on Sunday 11 November on Discovery Real Time (Sky 250, Virgin 271).

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Comments

  • Posted on 29 December 2008
  • at 10:13am
  • by WilliamGallagher-RT

There's no commercial DVD release so far as we can tell, Janice; but the book Rhodri refers to is available.

William Gallagher, Radio Times

  • Posted on 28 December 2008
  • at 9:52pm
  • by Janice

I know this is probably a wild goose chase but does anybody know if a DVD was ever made of this programme? I've tried to google the title but couldn't find anything. Just thought I'd ask....

  • Posted on 13 November 2007
  • at 4:29pm
  • by falhawk

A leprachaun presents a show perched on the hairdo of Robert Fripp's unhappy missus:

Top of the Moaning Toyah.

  • Posted on 13 November 2007
  • at 3:12pm
  • by Jones

Contestants compete to see how far they can throw items of bamboo furniture using the technique employed by Olympic hammer throwers: Wicker's Whirled

  • Posted on 13 November 2007
  • at 3:07pm
  • by Jones

Noel Edmonds' new megolomaniacal game show, in which contestants must beg him for the cash prize: Kneel or No Deal.

  • Posted on 13 November 2007
  • at 3:04pm
  • by RhodriMarsden-RT
Or, er... a gameshow where Duncan Goodhew leads a team of men with shaven heads from a sink estate in a battle against the clock to remove all seating from a local parish church, called No Pews With Goodhews.
  • Posted on 13 November 2007
  • at 3:04pm
  • by Jones

Docusoap following an elevator operator at a posh hotel: A Day in the Lift.

  • Posted on 13 November 2007
  • at 2:53pm
  • by Jones

Or how about a wildlife programme about the lives of aphids and other hermaphroditic creatures? Title: Scenes of Asexual Nature.

  • Posted on 13 November 2007
  • at 1:55pm
  • by RhodriMarsden-RT
You could have a game show in which a German electrician is blindfolded each week and let loose in a sub post-of?ce in which a fuse has blown, his mission to restore power to the building. Title: Maybe Hans Makes Lights Work.
  • Posted on 13 November 2007
  • at 12:39pm
  • by abdoujaparov

How about a programme in which Mick Jagger fails to collect any plants from the genus Bryophyta? It could be called "Mick Gathers No Moss".

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