Dancing on a Knife Edge: Lloyd Newson & DV8

Enter Achilles (1996)

"What men will not allow in themselves, they must deny in others." (Jonathan Rutherford)

Enter Achilles is an unflinching look at masculinity and homophobia. Newson plays beautifully with the blurry but all-important rules of male interaction. The characters, eight men in a pub, drink, play, tussle, fight, and pose, trying to negotiate intimacy, vulnerability and desire within the confines of 'masculine' behaviour. Rather than delivering a didactic statement about society's prescribed expectations, Newson offers a journey: "there is a truth and a lie in every generalisation, and sometimes it is valuable to find the individual in the stereotype, and the stereotype in the individual."

Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men

Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men is a film about the serial killer Dennis Nielsen made for LWT's South Bank Show in 1990. It made front-page tabloid news ("Gay Sex Orgy on TV!") not just for its controversial subject matter, but for the raw physicality with which it is told. However, while it's certainly disturbing, it is not a sensationalist piece, but told with complexity and nuance.