The Year of the Sex Olympics

The great British bonk-off. A wider satire on sensationalist television and the media in general, The Year of the Sex Olympics didn't just light the flame for reality TV: it also foresaw the schadenfreude that its participants would attract from viewers. Identifying current trends and evolving them to their logical extremes, showing us, in unsparing detail, what voyeurism can reduce us to, and how agreeing to give up anonymity for fame is a shortcut to becoming a plaything; it fixes the future in its sights. History has shown us that it hit a solid bullseye. Kneale's expert marshalling of these elements, sound characterisation and the inexorable tension and pathos which pervade the play ensure it stands as one of his most effective scripts. It's certainly enhanced by the brilliant direction of Michael Elliott, effective use of music, and the chilling production design, yet perhaps its most unsettling quality is how mainstream its darkest moments feel today. As we're shown merciless close-ups of one of the most haunting male breakdowns ever captured on screen, our glazed audience applauds, and an announcer cheerfully signs off with a hearty declaration for more to come. Boy, were they right. It's a great shame then that The Year of the Sex Olympics is, sadly, still only available in Black and White; it could very easily be restored to colour if wished, given its legacy as a prophecy of reality TV and screenbound culture as a whole, ingeniously depicting the future of lowest common denominator TV that is sadly still all to dominant today.

Imagine a world where 'high drive' people with no souls push the boundaries of entertainment for the 'low drive' people - the watching, inert masses, dead at 35. The masses who do not 'do', only 'watch'. A world where a show called 'Sport Sex' puts forwards participants for the Sex Olympics. A world where art is suppressed and tension of any kind is not allowed.

By the time laughter comes from the masses not because of a custard pie fight, but because of a bloody death, you can see how the experiment of 'The Live Life Show', starring a high drive couple and their underachieving child, transported to an island where they have to fend for themselves as in the old days, away from Output, will end.

In a cast who are uniformly effective, Tony Vogel, Suzanne Neve, Brian Cox and Leonard Rossiter stands out. As a look into a future dominated by reality TV, it is quite shocking to stop and realize how far along the road we are, and where it could end. Kneale's play certainly makes its point, although it takes a while for the story to get into its stride.

Originally made in colour but now only existing in black and white, the sets and costumes definitely get lost in the version we now have available. But as an indication of edgy sci-fix drama of the kind which wouldn't get commissioned now (they'd be too busy commissioning The Live Life Show), it still pulls no punches.

That's how Nancy Banks Smith - the greatest TV reviewer ever - described this play.

I saw this play as part of a BBC archive trial. It is funny to hear one producer suggest a new idea for a programme: "I know let's put some people on a deserted island and just watch them." 32 years before Survivor or Big Brother. Of course, Nigel Kneale probably got paid £1000. John De Mol milked about Euro 1bn from the actual show.

Not all the predictions are true - the general public are shown to be lifeless drones who just watch TV all day and aside from Liverpool this has not come true.

Also, the viewer satisfaction ratings at the time were low and I think if I had seen the play in 1968 I would not have liked it as much. We like it now because of its predictive quality rather than for its artistic merits.

Finally, Banks Smith said you had to see the play in colour and only a B&W print exists.

BTW, there have been deaths from reality shows - suicide of an evictee on the first reality show - Family Robinson, the forerunner of Survivor. Suicide of an evictee on a US boxing TV show.

Time : the near future. Or far. Or now.

A small minority of "high drive" people manufacture the entertainment and drugs that keep the majority of "low drive" people happy. TV is two way - they can see the audience reacting. And the news is bad - the Low Drives are getting bored, even with the "S=x Olympics" on the horizon.

Not all the High Drives are happy either. Some want "real art" on TV, others just have consciences. One "real art" advocate cracks, puts on an unscheduled demonstration during a TV show and is killed in a fall.

The audience laps it up, even as it laughs it up. The High Drives realize that the Low Drives want surprise, tragedy, even horror. They devise the "Live Life Show", with a High Drive family stranded on a windswept Scottish island, and lots of cameras around to follow their movements....and there's a surprise...your friendly neighborhood psychopath.

Britain's top actors, including the incomparable Leonard Rossiter, showed the way to where we are now, with Reality TV and Fear Factor lining the sewer of the public mind. At least they haven't killed anybody...yet.

There's no doubt in my mind the most influential dramatist in the history of British television is Nigel Kneale . He was the script writer who defined that television drama should be as ambitious as cinema while remaining as intimate as theater . He will always be synonymous with his QUATERMASS serials but has also contributed other great pieces of drama over the decades . One of them THE YEAR OF THE SEXUAL OLYMPICS has steadily become something of a legend in itself in that it predicts a future obsession with what is now described as " reality TV " , so does the teleplay live up to its legendary status ?

In my opinion not really . OLYMPICS does have some very clever concepts but somewhere along the line the ideas seem somewhat badly executed . The story itself seems to owe a lot to Orwell's 1984 telescreens aren't used to spy on people but to rather control them . People are natural voyeurs and if you give them what they want via the telescreen they'll eventually become desensitized to their desires . You can understand the point behind Kneale's logic but you're also left with the feeling that Kneale has failed to bring a bigger subtext to his subject . Certainly in his 1979 QUATERMASS serial you recognise a wonderful subtext of science vs faith with science at its most dangerous and destructive eventually saving the human race but there's a spark of genius missing from this 1968 drama

The production values do not help either . I for one am grateful that it's preserved on monochrome . Can you imagine how garish and gaudy everything would have looked in colour ? It's a constant problem of late60s/early 70s film and television where the future tends to look too futuristic to remain credible . Kneale doesn't help his cause either by having everyone talk in a trans-Atlantic " Newspeak " . Again you can understand the thinking behind this - the World has become assimilated by American pop culture - but combined with Michael Elliot's rather weak direction it's like listening to a parody of American film moguls and makes for a rather ridiculous acting style not helped by deliberately written idiosyncratic speech patterns where

" Does he know what he's saying ? " becoming

" He know what he say ? which soon becomes irritating . It's not helped either by the casting of Leonard Rossiter and Brian Cox whose future well known roles become more of a hindrance than an advantage

All told THE YEAR OF THE SEX OLYMPICS is a massive disappointment . As many people here have said it shows sign of prophecy but this is heavily negated by rather poor production values , weak directing but most of all a lack of streamlined storytelling on the part of the writer . One can't help thinking how well this drama would have been remembered if it wasn't for the birth of reality TV at the turn of the century