Kissing scenes are back: BBC and other broadcasters publish new filming guidelines

Actors can film kissing and sex scenes once more after broadcasters drew up new Covid-safe rules to allow touching.

The guidelines were established after it became clear that socially distanced filming would ruin intimate scenes.

Cast members who need to be in close screen proximity will be grouped in “close contact cohorts” and asked to undergo a swab test before filming starts. They must then observe social distancing rules until they obtain the test result, at which point they can go on set.

During filming, tests will be retaken at least once a week and temperatures taken every day. The cohorts will be identifiable by coloured armbands or wristbands.

The guidelines have been developed by the BBC, ITV and others and are for scenes which “unavoidably require interaction” within the two-metre boundary and “where all other options have been considered and discounted”.

If a member of the cohort displays any Covid symptoms during the production, all members will need to self-isolate and be tested. A BBC spokesperson said: “Getting TV production back up and running safely is our priority. The BBC has already produced popular shows during lockdown following social distancing - from Have I Got News For You to Talking Heads.

"But if we are to get back to producing the range and quality of programmes that the public love which reflect real life interactions, we are going to need to film scenes and shows where people are closer than two metres apart.

“There will be increased screening for these groups, alongside daily symptom checks, and close contact periods would be restricted on set.”

As well as drama, the rules could be followed by shows such as Strictly Come Dancing, which is returning in October.

Soap operas recently resumed filming with the two-metre rule in place.

Before the guidelines were issued, productions were working out how to film sex scenes between actors who had to remain two metres apart

Ita O’Brien, the intimacy director on the BBC’s Normal People and other hit shows, recently said: “There is so much intimacy that we can still tell - through intention, sculpting the gaze and perhaps a movement towards each other that might not require actual touch but which can still generate all that intimacy.”