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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 443731" data-attributes="member: 23">MatesWe’ve already touched on the fact that ACP broached subjects that may first appear from its gentle rural image. Homosexuality is one of those subjects that could have gone either way. Yes, Number 96 had paved the way a full decade earlier, but that was a late night show which could get away with more. ACP is the sort of show your grandmother could watch, so it wouldn’t have surprised me if gay people were simply never seen or heard about in Wandin Valley, the way that Erinsborough and Summer Bay would similarly skirt any mention of the G Word for their first ten to fifteen years of airtime. Since any question of if  is answered by virtue of the key story here focussing on a gay couple, the remaining question is how. Pleasingly, the writing and performances build a balanced picture of the couple that is very much in tune with the idea that these are people and not just The Gay Characters. If one forms a mental image from the basic information that this is an early Eighties series “doing” a story about two gay men, it’s likely to be very different from what’s presented.For a start, these are older men. We learn that they have been together for over twenty years. They also are characters who conform to rather more heterosexual social norms. One of the men, Doug, is played by James Conran, best remembered by me as Neighbours’ confidence trickster Douglas Blake (and real-life hubby of Anne Haddy), whose time on the series spanned two channels when the series was axed and picked up by another network, and he delivers his lines with the same timbre and tone that he would there Sons and Daughters is a bit different, as I seem to recall him having an Irish accent in that). There’s no sense that he’s “playing gay”. His partner Keith, played by Don Pascoe, is somewhat more fragile, very nervous and shown to be quite dependent on Doug. I can imagine a more reactive viewer crying “stereotype”, but there is such nuance here with enough information to understand why Keith acts this way, not least the fact that he had a nervous breakdown some years earlier. The reason for this is not made explicit. We can guess that it might be tied to societal rejection - demonstrated in this story by his estrangement from his closest living relative, his sister - but there’s also room for the fact that his life experiences - like anyone’s - are broad enough for there to be any number of factors or circumstances that may be behind this. This being the Eighties and these being from the Interwar/Depression Generation, the men are in the closet, and have lived in the town for a number of years with everyone believing them to be brothers and this is as much as the viewer knows as we meet them. The structure allows the viewer to take in certain information and put the pieces together - for instance at their own pace. There are small little visual cues that are added in that give suggestions without a definitive answer. As the couple surveys the land on which their new home will stand, for instance they are side by side and one of them reaches up and puts his arm on the shoulder of the other. It’s a “safe” kind of move, on the shoulder nearest to him rather than reaching round his neck, but it’s just intimate enough to give another little piece of the puzzle. I dare say most viewers in 2026 would get it very early on, but this aired 45 years ago and times were very different. The way the men present in private compared with in public is just different enough to continue this. It could easily be read as a familial kind of intimacy, but taken as a whole, even the most heterosexist viewer may start to wonder. Even by the first episode’s end, there is no explicit confirmation in dialogue, beyond the cliffhanger that the two men aren’t brothers. But the reactions tell us all they believe, even if they may not be right. continued...</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?