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In a future where society is split into the ‘low-drives’ and the ‘high-drives’, co-ordinator Ugo Priest discovers a new form of entertainment that is guaranteed to boost TV ratings and keep the low-drives in check…..reality television In the near future, society is split into two strata: The ‘low-drives’ make up the zombie-like majority, mentally anaesthetized by an incessant diet of television, largely consisting of pornography. Television, and by extension the masses, is controlled by the ‘high-drives’, an educated class who remain servile through their perpetual quest for better ratings and audience subjugation. When the low-drives start to become increasingly uninterested in the programming on offer, co-ordinator Ugo Priest (Leonard Rossiter) ends up accidentally happening upon a new entertainment concept…..reality television. First broadcast in 1968, The Year of the Sex Olympics is one of the most original pieces of television drama ever written and would foreshadow the likes of Big Brother and the phenomenon that is Love Island.

The Year of the Sex Olympics (1968)
105 min
Influenced by concerns about overpopulation, the counterculture of the 1960s and the societal effects of television, the play depicts a world of the future where a small elite control the media, keeping the lower classes docile by serving them an endless diet of lowest common denominator programmes and pornography. The play concentrates on an idea the programme controllers have for a new programme which will follow the trials and tribulations of a group of people left to fend for themselves on a remote island. In this respect, the play is often cited as having anticipated the craze for reality television.