'Lost Boys & Fairies' to Premiere on BritBox in March
Sion Daniel Young and Fra Fee in "Lost Boys & Fairies"
(Photo: BBC)
The routine acceptance of LGBTQ+ presenting/identifying people in Western society is a relatively recent phenomenon. The U.S. and U.K. legalizing marriage for all is barely a decade old; the U.K.'s Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Act went into effect in March 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court found in favor of the same-sex couples suing to have their unions recognized in 2015's Obergefell v. Hodges. Most of us who lived through the 1980s and 1990s remember when the world was very different and being gay was a thing people were taught to be ashamed of. That's why series like Lost Boys & Fairies continue to feel like groundbreaking television when they come along: an adoption drama focusing on Welsh couple Gabriel and Andy; the series is really about the universal theme of parents and children... just told through the perspective of gay adoption.
It helps that series like Lost Boys & Fairies are produced by the BBC, which still gives creative reign to many of its writers, including award-winning playwrights like Daf James, the driving creative force behind the show. It also helps that the limited series has a cast of high-profile multi-talented actors like Siôn Daniel Young, who got his start by being cast in James' Welsh language stage show Llwyth (Tribe). A singer, dancer, and professionally trained actor, Young stars as a drag queen whose partner desperately wants to start a family but whose homophobia-filled childhood and subsequent substance abuse struggles make him hesitant to take on such a responsibility.
Lost Boys & Fairies was critically acclaimed when it debuted in the U.K. in June 2024, and British TV fans have been anxiously waiting to see where it landed on American streaming. The good news is that the ever-expanding BritBox has scooped it up, and its 2025 slate is its most ambitious to date. The better news is that the wait won't be long; the series will arrive in March 2025.
Here's the series synopsis:
Lost Boys & Fairies follows Gabriel, a performance artist extraordinaire at the spectacular queer club space Neverland. With his partner, Andy, he longs to take their relationship to the next level by adopting a child. Although the couple initially wanted to adopt a girl, they meet and begin to grow fond of Jake, a child placed in foster care after being removed from his violent father. We follow Gabe on a coming of middle-age journey as he faces his own childhood trauma so he can help Jake deal with his. Fusing queer culture with powerful family drama, Lost Boys & Fairies is filled to the brim with humour, redemption, and love.
Sion Daniel Young (Slow Horses) stars as Gabriel, with Fra Fee (Les Misérables) as his partner, Andy. The two are joined by Leo Harris (Becoming Elizabeth) as Jake, plus Elizabeth Berrington (Fifteen-Love), Sharon D. Clarke (Inspector Ellis), Maria Doyle Kennedy (Outlander), Arwel Gruffydd (Tess of the D’Urbervilles), Shaheen Jafargholi (Wreck), Mali Ann Rees (The Pact), William Thomas (Steeltown Murders), Gwyneth Keyworth (The Trouble With Maggie Cole), and Gwawr Loader (Hidden).
Daf James conceived and wrote all three episodes of Lost Boys & Fairies as part of the TV Drama Writers' Programme, known as the "Welsh Voices" project, with the BBC Writers' Room. Director James Kent (The Capture) helmed all episodes which Duck Soup Films produced for BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
Lost Boys & Fairies will premiere on BritBox on Tuesday, March 4, 2025. It is unclear if BritBox will drop all three episodes at once, or if they will arrive on a weekly schedule.
