Sydney, 1983. “A city of refuge,” a chirpy narrator tells us in the opening shots of the ABC’s new drama In Our Blood. “Because every freak needs a home, a culture, a language.” Oxford Street brims with pleasure seekers of all denominations: hirsute hunks hand-in-hand with shirtless beefcakes, mouthy drag queens encrusted in glitter, shocks of coloured hair and fuzzy moustaches roaming a nightclub flanked by silvery curtains.
If you didn’t know any better, it could be a scene plucked from this year’s WorldPride – except Bob Hawke has just won his election, ending seven long years of Liberal leadership. There’s a change coming in with the breeze – or maybe it’s just the heady aroma of sweat and poppers spilling across the discotheque, where everyone’s gathered to usher in the new era with gay abandon.
