ITV drama ‘Victoria’ braces for backlash over gay kiss
ITV’s ‘Victoria’ is bracing for a potential backlash when two of its characters will share a gay kiss tonight.
The show will feature its first same-sex kiss this evening when the show airs on ITV.
It features historical figures Lord Alfred Paget and Edward Drummond who will share a kiss at the end of the episode.
The kiss happens as the royal court travels to Scotland.
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Chemistry has been building between the two characters for the second season of the show.
Drummond is the Prime Minister Robert Peel’s private secretary and Lord Paget was an equerry.
Homosexuality was illegal at the time and was partially decriminalised in 1967.
The show’s writer Daisy Goodwin has said the kiss is a “creative” moment in the show.
But she said that “some people might get very cross with me” about the gay kiss.
“But if it did happen, we would never know. The word homosexual did not exist in those times. There were as many gay people as there are now, but they didn’t define themselves as straight or gay or bisexual.
“Famously [Queen Victoria] didn’t believe there could have been such a thing as lesbians,” she added.
“But I think Victoria was a lot more tolerant than she was made out to be.”
