Blind Date to air first LGBT episode to coincide with London's Pride parade

It’s taken more than 30 years, but this Saturday Blind Date is set to air its first ever LGBT episode to coincide with London Pride.

The episode will be the first of several in the series featuring lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender contestants.

This Saturday’s Blind Date will see Alice, a Celine Dion superfan who deals with customer complaints for a frozen foods company, choose whether to go on a date with Steph, a digital content manager, Sarah, a civil engineering technician, or Jane, who was born in New Zealand.

Alice says she is looking for someone she loves as much as Dion.

Each Blind Date episode plays host to two sets of singletons, and the other half of this instalment will follow Antoni as he chooses between three women.

Blind Date was first broadcast in 1985 on ITV and was presented by Cilla Black, but has been relaunched on Channel 5 by her old pal Paul O’Grady.

A Channel 5 spokesperson said: “The new Blind Date has been updated to make it relevant for today’s audience. We wanted to be inclusive with our contestants and having LGBT representation throughout the series was really important to us from the outset, alongside maintaining the spirit and warmth of the original and much-loved format.”

Another dating show embracing the LGBT theme is Naked Attraction which, although controversial for its “exploitative nudity”, has been lauded for its diversity.

The Blind Date episode will air on Channel 5 at 8pm on Saturday 8 July