10 Most Controversial British TV Films

This Dennis Potter penned 1976 play was declared by the then BBC Director of Television Programmes to be 'nauseating' though 'brilliantly made,' and so the Beeb shelved it for over a decade.

Brimstone & Treacle tells of a middle-class couple in middle age who, after a tragic hit and run, must care for their former-undergraduate daughter. And then, one day, a mysterious young man walks into their lives.

Featuring sexual assault, accused of blasphemy, and other social issues including fascism, the play is unflinching to say the least.

Speaking of his taking on the role of the mysterious young man in a later film version, Sting said he believed the young man was supposed to be the Devil. The Beeb concurred, so to speak, and decided that the play was far too horrible to air. It remained unbroadcast until 1987.

Some controversies seem ridiculous in retrospect, but not so with Brimstone & Treacle. It remains difficult, disquieting viewing. And if you are interested, they remade it as a film with Sting a few years later, for reasons best known to themselves.