Consenting Adults (2007)

Consenting Adults is an interesting TV movie depicting the events of the Wolfenden enquiry, which did a lot of work towards the decriminalisation of homosexuality. Charles Dance plays Reading University Dean John Wolfenden who is tasked by the government to lead an investigation into prostitution, and lumped in with this, homosexuality, with a brief to either change existing laws or confirm that they should be enforced. 

Alongside committee room scenes where Wolfenden and his panel of MPs, doctors and others listen to testimony from a policeman, Alfred Kinsey, and (shock horror!) an actual homosexual(!), the drama follows Jeremy Wolfenden, the future knight's son, who has announced he's queer and flounces off to Oxford with the aim of becoming a journalist. Additionally, a married man has an affair with a young labourer, before the latter gets too clingy and the married guy shops him to the police, leading to several arrests. These other storylines are not that well tied in with the Wolfenden committee, but I guess they're supposed to give an idea of what life was like for gays back in the 1950s to contrast with the prehistoric views held by Wolfenden and some of his colleagues. 

Where the drama succeeds is in the arguments for decriminalising homosexuality, which are nicely played with some humour, and the way Dance subtled portrays Wolfenden's thawing in his stance, partly as a result of the testimony of professional witnesses, and partly through the experience of his son - not that he would admit this as father and son have a testy relationship at best. Consenting Adults does a fine job in presenting an important piece of gay history, and for that reason should be made compulsory viewing for all card-carrying homosexuals. Oh and my viewing of this during Gay History Month is entirely coincidental!