Lost Boys and Fairies
The idea that drag artiste Gabriel and his accountant partner Andy should be encouraged to adopt a child fills me with genuine anger. It is truly offensive.
That has nothing at all to do with the fact they’re gay men. Gender and sexuality are irrelevant in adoption now, and I’m delighted that it’s so.
But this thirtysomething couple in the three-part drama Lost Boys And Fairies radiate naked bigotry. It’s a prejudice so sinister and deep-rooted that I watched in disbelief — waiting for some twist to show me that I’d misunderstood. The twist never came.
After an initial meeting with a social worker, Gabriel and Andy (Sion Daniel Young and Fra Fee) fill out a form to indicate what they’re expecting as parents.
‘Risk of special needs…’ reads Andy. Before he can finish the sentence, Gabriel snaps, ‘Wouldn’t accept.’
A thirtysomething couple star in the three-part drama Lost Boys And Fairies
Drag artiste Gabriel and his accountant partner Andy are searching for a child to adopt
But the couple have strict criteria and refuse to consider any child with an disability
A smile spreads across Andy’s face. ‘Harsh!’ he chuckles. ‘All right, Down’s Syndrome?’
‘Wouldn’t accept!’ And then, when his partner teasingly calls him ‘horrible,’ he defends himself: ‘Pregnant people get scanned for anomalies all the time.’
The only possible interpretation of that line is that Gabriel would want to abort any unborn child with an ‘anomaly’ — unaware that his use of the word, instead of ‘disability’, makes him sound like a 1930s eugenicist.
More than that, he sees no difference between aborting a foetus and rejecting a schoolchild with a disability. When the camera zooms in, we see they have also ticked ‘No’ to children with mental illness, physical illness or learning disabilities.
From that point on, it was impossible to have any sympathy for either man. Perhaps writer Daf James, who based the story on his own experiences of adopting, was trying to show that his characters were not saints but flawed human beings.
Knee-jerk revulsion at the first mention of a child’s disability is not a flaw, though. It’s repugnant — all the more so in a person like Gabriel who never stops talking about the prejudice he has faced all his life. Maybe we’re supposed to forgive him because he has the courage to stand on stage in feathers and sequins, singing show tunes. Well, I don’t.
But I did keep expecting the couple to be shown how wrong they were. Their social worker Jackie said nothing, not even asking how they’d react if their child became ill or suffered a life-changing accident.
At an ‘activity day’, for under-sevens hoping for adoption, they met a girl of six or so, Ezmie, playing with Plasticine. Ezmie was blind. Vile horror was written all over Andy’s face. To Andy’s surprise, Gabriel played unselfconsciously with the child — then explained, ‘There was no pressure. I knew there was no way we would ever take her on’.
These are two people who claim to be desperate to adopt a little girl, yet there’s ‘no way’ blind Ezmie could ever be good enough for them. I wouldn’t let them adopt a gerbil, never mind a child.
Scalp covering of the night: Shaven-headed Clive Myrie helped out in his cousin Earl’s hotel kitchen, on his Caribbean Adventure (BBC2), cooking curried goat.
Why he needed to don a hairnet was not explained, but he looked very fetching in it.
