Credit: BBC One
2 min read
“It’s a statement that we, as gay people, are actually equal to others, worthy of relationships and deserving of the same rights as everyone else,” says Tom Allen of BBC One’s Big Gay Wedding.
If you’ve grown gloomy with the general state of the world (and who can blame you?), then the TV gods are here to remind you that love, actually, is all around. Enter the fray, please, Big Gay Wedding With Tom Allen.
The BBC One special has been commissioned to mark a truly momentous occasion: the 10th anniversary of the first same-sex wedding in the UK.
This means that the 60-minute film will not only see the aforementioned Allen pull out all the stops to arrange a dream wedding for one gay couple it will also explore how LGBTQ+ campaigners won the fight to have equal marriage legalised in the UK in 2003. Along the way, Allen will speak with activists, including Lynn Sutcliffe and Sarah Hews, who made headlines in 1992 for presenting themselves at Westminster Registry Office to be married – as well as Angela Eagle, the MP who helped introduce civil partnerships in 2004.
“When I was growing up, the idea that gay people could be accepted by society, never mind get married, was as mad as a sack of chihuahuas,” says Allen matter-of-factly.
“Now, every year, thousands of same-sex couples get married, and that’s certainly something to celebrate. Now two people can say they love each other in front of their friends and families and have it recognised by all of us in society, and that’s a wonderful thing.”
Credit: BBC One/Minnow FIlms
Allen – who will work alongside the likes of Oti Mabuse and Sophie Ellis-Bextor to plan a wedding in just three months – continues: “In the eyes of the law means more than just ‘a wedding’. It’s a much more profound symbol – a statement that we, as gay people, are actually equal to others, worthy of relationships and deserving of the same rights as everyone else. In partaking in marriage we are part of the rest of the world and the history of humankind.”
“Maybe that seems like a grand statement but for so much of history, queer people have been made to feel less than everyone else or outside of society,” he finishes.
Credit: BBC/Minnow Films
In the one-off film for BBC One and iPlayer, Allen will reflect on his own experiences of growing up gay as he considers how far LGBTQ+ rights have advanced.
Best of all? Well, the whole thing will culminate in the wedding of the happy couple, in what the BBC has promised will be a “joyous celebration of love, community and hard-won equality”.
Consider us sold!
Big Gay Wedding With Tom Allen will drop at 9pm, Wednesday 27 March on BBC One.
Images: BBC/Minnow Films
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