‘It’s shocking the amount of times I’m called a pedophile online’: Inside Russell T Davies’s chilling drama about rising hatred | television

toWe ate at night on Manchester’s Canal Street, the heart of the city’s famous gay scene, where two neighbors were at war. The escalating feud between gay bar manager Leo (Alan Cumming) and reserved neighbor Clive (David Morrissey) shows no sign of abating. Leo’s screams are so loud that they echo down the canal. The street isn’t closed to the public while their altercation breaks out, so you can’t tell who is the employee in the background at Leo’s pub, Spit & Polish, a regular, and who is a member of the public going out for a pint in the middle of the week. In the background, ambulance lights flash as stationary drag queens continue to fly into the bars next door.

Russell T Davies’ Tip Toe, a new Channel 4 drama, examines how political rhetoric, toxic online bullying and misinformation can add jet fuel to discord between neighbours. The setting of the series will not be lost on Queer As Folk viewers. The 1999 classic, which regularly featured scenes filmed on Canal Street, followed the lives of three gay men, in a way that not only made being gay seem cool, but also reflected a new era of tolerance. Viewers took away from him that the future can only be bright.

now? “We’re back on this slide back into something as bad as I can remember, if not worse, because people now know what they’re doing,” Davis tells me. “In the old days, when we used to preach about visibility, if someone punched you in the face, or pushed you away… you had an excuse by saying they were ignorant. They were in the dark and we had to be seen. And now they’ve seen us, and now I think the anger and this violence is on the rise. So what the hell does that say?”

Davies says he has never written with so much anger in his life. The central question running through all five episodes is that if inclusion and representation are now taken for granted, what if other people don’t like what they see? The conflict begins when Leo asks Clive for help after he is banned from his house, but Clive’s reluctance, reserved personality and problematic views leave Leo and the viewer concerned about where this will end up – and how deep his resentment for Leo will run. The series is a powerful exploration of hate, and how LGBT people can find themselves in the line of fire, as Trump’s election now gives anyone who is angry permission to say whatever they want without consequences.

“This is not an exclusively gay problem,” says Davies, “but yet we easily focus on it. Whatever this anger is, we are a target. The number of times I’m called a pedophile on the internet is a pedophile.” [for his support of trans rights] “It’s shocking and maybe doable, except I think if I take action, I’ll make it worse.” It’s the fear of being able to express yourself that the show is named after. “I used to walk into the room and say, ‘Ta-da!'” Melba (Paul Rees), a close friend and drinker at Leo’s bar, says in the first episode. “Now I’m tip-toe. Just in case.

“We’ve all seen the changes, we’ve all felt them,” Cumming says. He’s just filmed a scene in his bar in the middle of a crowded service, though everyone is dancing in silence so as not to obscure the dialogue, so the only thing you can hear is the creaking of the floorboards.

Cumming says Davies has a talent not only for reminding us of things from our past — as in “It’s a Sin,” his critically acclaimed 2021 drama about the AIDS crisis — but also for writing about our present and future. There is a death in “Tip Two” that may at first seem far-fetched, but the strength of the drama lies in how it increasingly feels within reach. “It sounds crazy about this, but he makes it all quite plausible — and very precise. It’s not black and white.”

For some, including members of the LGBTQ+ community, it may come as a surprise that the drama reminds people of the challenges that threaten them. He does not agree.

“No, because I think that’s what dramas are for,” Cumming says. “Why do we do the Greeks? Why do we read Shakespeare? They have things to say, and we need to keep hearing the same stories and symbols, because they are important for us as a culture, to hear and understand and reinterpret.”

If the scenes aren’t filmed on Canal Street, they’re at Clive and Leo’s homes. The home lives of two neighbors at war and the themes of intrusion into Leo’s private life were inspired by recent events as Davies felt unsafe in his home. Three years ago, the BBC’s Imagine documentary series featured Alan Yentob looking back on Davies’ career and his return to Doctor Who.. A fan who recognized his home appeared outside and began receiving messages from viewers. When a kind neighbour, who had a key, let himself into the property without knocking on the front door first, it frightened Davies.

“I was blown away by how cool it was, and how easy it was to hack into your home,” he says. Then he began to think about what it must be like for other people in less fortunate positions. “If it’s up to me, what the hell is it about levels where you have less defense, less mobility, and less money, honestly?”

From the opening scene outside the front door, you can tell that Clive doesn’t really think much of Leo. An electrician with two sons, Clive’s enigmatic personality means that there are times when you’re not sure how evil his opinions really are. The third episode flips the perspective from Leo and his friends mostly to Clive. He is unhappy in his marriage, unable to earn enough income and is ostracized by his colleagues. He feels trapped and alone, but is unable to trust his male friends. The series explores the reasons why Clive takes the dark path at every intersection.

“Instead of having friends and connecting with them, he finds validation online,” Morrissey says. “They leave: It’s these people. They take your job. It reinforces something he had all along. So he gets angrier and angrier and angrier.”

“We’re very, very fair to Clive on this,” says Davies. “He’s not just the monster next door. Even if you don’t necessarily feel sympathy for Clive, the talent of the show is that you get a full understanding of the circumstances that eventually led him to hold these views.”

“It’s a very precise piece,” Morrissey says. “I felt like there were a lot of opportunities within the story where the characters, especially my character, could have gone a different route, made a different decision. Russell gave him that fork in the road to play with and that was really interesting to me; about why this guy made the decision to go one direction instead of the other. That’s a gift to the actor.”

Trying to get a comprehensive view of the issues raised here is a deliberate choice by Davies. Most of Spit & Polish’s employees are from the younger generation of LGBTQ+ people. He sought advice from writer Juno Dawson, with whom he had worked on Doctor Who, on how to portray trans characters in the show, including the charming and likeable employee Zee (Ezz Hesketh). Stephanie (Elizabeth Berrington), Leo’s best friend who we see throughout the series, is gender critical – believing that biological sex cannot be changed from birth.

“I wanted all kinds of voices in there,” says Davies. “I have friends who are gender critical. Only online do you end up yelling and screaming and getting attacked by them. In real life, you can have a conversation, and we all sigh and bear with each other. That’s the way the world works. It’s actually the way the world stops working.” As horrific violence nears the end of the series, Stephanie and Zee end up on the same side.

Cumming says filming was an intense experience because of the subject matter. “I have this kind of pain, I don’t know what it is, in my heart, in my chest, when I think about it,” he says. But it left him feeling hopeful for the future after working alongside so many young people.

“They were so wonderful, supportive and kind,” he says. “It’s very emotional.”

Despite the subject matter, the show also features a lot of solidarity and camaraderie, expressed through the young workers who work in its pub. “Joy, queer joy, trans joy, black joy is a form of protest,” Cumming says. “It exasperates people who have no joy or don’t understand why you can feel happy when everything in the world seems to be against you.”

“There is great joy [in Tip Toe]What follows is a short pause: “Some of it.”

Tip Toe starts on Sunday 31 May at 9pm on Channel 4.