The Year of the Sex Olympics

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Originally made in colour but now only existing in black and white, the sets and costumes definitely get lost in the version we now have available.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.

On a future overly-crowded Earth, the masses are distracted by televised sex and entertained by ridiculous plot-less programming but, when then the 'media elites' discover that their flaccid viewers are more entertained when watching pain, they debut a cruel new show where forgotten emotions such as "fear and anger, worry and pain and ... grief" are put on display. Written by Nigel Kneale, who had penned a screen treatment of Orwell's '1984' for the BBC (there are similarities between the stories, notably in keeping the masses content and in the simplification of language) and the well-received 'Quatermass' sci-fi series in the 1950s, the film is often lauded for predicting the rise of 'reality TV' in the 2000s. This may be the first film to touch on the premise of people's 'real' lives (suffering or otherwise) being used for entertainment although the concept has been around in sci-fi books for some time. The budget BBC production is entertaining in a retro way, notably the future fashions which extend the 'paisley and flower-power' look of the 60s to the extreme. The truncated language takes some getting used to and the sound and images on the B/W survivor I watched on-line is a bit rough (the BBC, in their lack of wisdom, wiped the original colour prints), but otherwise this is a fascinating throw-back and Kneale deserves acknowledgement for making some of the more fulfilled predications in TV sci-fi (but the media was as ripe for this kind of satire then as it is now). Too bad we got crappy TV instead of flying cars.

Nigel Kneale's play The Year of the Sex Olympics is prophetic but if the original colour episode existed it would been very garish. As it is the black and white drama is dated and rather stilted.

Based in a near future where the masses are fed low brow entertainment ranging from custard pie fights to wall to wall pronography. This is in order keep them disengaged from eating and having sex with each other.

The television executives have found that the audience are uninterested with what they have to watch. Probably desensitised with all the sex on tv.

One executive as an idea to commission a new type of programme. The Live Life Show, Nat Mender (Tony Vogel) his partner Deanie (Suzanne Neve) and their daughter Keten are stranded on a remote Scottish island learning to cope on their own. A reality television show.

However Mender's colleague, Lasar Opie (Brian Cox) has ideas to spice up the show by introducing hidden dangers and other people on the island, total disregarding the show's original brief. Opie knows that the audience will be interested as the show descends into violence.

Kneale wrote a satire on sensational television and took it to its logical conclusion. It is hampered by its futuristic fashion, make up and language. Vogel's acting verges on the awful with his bug eyed stares. It also felt too long and could had done with being snappier.

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.

I first saw this in the early 70's, it was considered then to be nothing more than science fiction. Intended to be a glimpse of a world where anything goes in the name of entertainment, as well as a warning. It was meant to be an extreme satirical extrapolation, alluding to a future time, in the hope that it might not happen. Spooky really!!

This theme has been done to death many times since, but it was still fresh and original back then. I also remember a TV programme around about the same time called 'The Machine Stops', based on a short story by E M Forster. Although somewhat dated and naive now, bear in mind that it was written in 1909. Its main theme is that humans eventually become alienated and remote from their surroundings, preferring to communicate via TV screens, referred to as Cinematophote. This happened, in the fictional world, because the Earth was contaminated and the inhabitants had to go underground. Obviously the Internet, TV or email was not known then, but it predicted all three, it is strange how fact has 'triumphed' over fiction.

We haven't got to the next stage yet, whereby humans are entirely isolated from their surroundings, but who can say what the future portends?