Russell T. Davies angry new drama isn’t a TV show — it’s a wake-up call

It’s a scary time to be your authentic self as a queer person. Though, when hasn’t it been?

When I ask queer people if they feel more in danger today than they did 10 years ago, the response is mixed.

Some say they no longer feel comfortable holding their partner’s hand when they walk down the street for fear they’ll be ridiculed or, far worse.

Others say they’ve never been safe.

Tip Toe, the latest gut-punching drama from Russell T. Davies – his first since the life-altering It’s A Sin – is an alarming, though not inaccurate, portrayal of what it’s really like to be unapologetically gay in a Britain that hates us.

A Britain that still links queerness to paedophilia; that is scared of us, despises us, and believes the ‘gay agenda’ is brainwashing children.

So what happens when two neighbours – Leo, the owner of a gay club on Manchester’s Canal Street, and Clive, a Brexit-voting, conspiracy-theorist Reform (presumably) supporter – have such polarising perspectives? Both afraid of the other, they are at war.

There’s been a lot of emphasis on spreading queer joy of late. As gay people, we’ve had gay trauma rammed down our throats throughout the ’90s and ’00s.

Thank God for the Heartstoppers of the world, letting us escape into an idyllic vision of queer existence. But queer joy, as well-meaning as it is, doesn’t tell the full story – at least not right now.

When the media is far more focused on whether trans women should be able to compete in women’s sports, whether it’s fair for a trans woman to play competitive chess against another woman, or what toilets we should all be using, LGBTQ+ people are dying, being obscenely harassed, and beaten to a pulp for existing.

But those stories aren’t making the headlines. With the exception of Brianna Ghey – the trans teenager stabbed to death by school bullies – the headline isn’t our safety; it’s everyone else’s safety from us.

Tip Toe is Davies at his most impassioned; a wake-up call that this is not a time to be complacent. We are sleepwalking into a chapter of increasing fascism, increasing hate, and a world where it is becoming increasingly dangerous to walk down the street and even hint at queerness.

Leo isn’t even safe in his own home. The homophobia from next door seeps through the adjoining wall; his guard must be up at all times.

Clive is trapped in a miserable marriage, his two sons both keeping secrets from him he’ll never understand, and, as a middle-aged white man, he believes the world is out to get him.

If it’s not the gay community taking over Britain with Pride flags hanging on every street corner, it’s immigrants taking his job.

There is, of course, light in the darkness. Much like It’s A Sin, the Channel 4 drama about the AIDS crisis, much of the magic of the gay community comes through Davies’ quick wit and distinctive humour. We might be reverting to a time of unbearable hostility, but as a community, we still laugh in the face of danger.

Cumming’s signature cheekiness is needed – and brilliant – in what is otherwise an extremely heavy watch.

His character, Leo, is surrounded by young queer people who turn to gay nightlife to find their chosen family, and his Canal Street bar becomes a home with an open door for lost and lonely queer people to find each other.

They’re a collective of wonderful misfits: a cross-generational pack of drag queens, trans girls, and sexy twinks who have found joy in life and community.

Morrissey perhaps has the most difficult task of anyone. Clive is the man so many queer people fear most, and with good reason.

But beneath his extreme-right politics and wildly inaccurate opinions of LGBTQ+ people, there is a father, husband, and man who just wants to do right by his family — whether you agree with him or not.

At times, Clive is tender; he is soft, and Davies asks us not to always judge our enemy but, if we can, to show him the truth.

What happens after that, who knows? But more often than not, it’s worth trying.

Davies doesn’t write queer dramas for queer people alone; Tip Toe often feels as though its main purpose is to reach beyond the echo chamber of the queer community and scream to those outside it: ‘We are not safe, and you need to wake up and help us.’

The LGBTQ+ community is fighting, and it is tired. It needs an army bigger than itself just to feel safe and respected by its neighbours.

Admittedly, I battled with some of the monologues about the queer experience that felt, at times, misplaced and slightly forced, until I remembered Davies’ writing has always been as much about changing the dial as it is about great storytelling – and still, Tip Toe is glorious at both.

When It’s A Sin encouraged thousands of people to get tested for HIV – no doubt saving countless lives – it connected young gay men with the thousands who died of AIDS or watched so many of their friends succumb to the disease, connecting us to a trauma many of us simply didn’t know enough about.

I have no doubt Tip Toe will once again have a seismic impact. What that impact looks like, neither Davies nor I can promise, but I hope it mobilises the gay community to remember that we cannot be complacent.

We are right to be on high alert, and while we are right to cling to joy, we also have to be more vigilant than many of us have ever experienced – while recognising that others have been here before.

To everyone else, hopefully this will help them understand that the danger is real, it’s spreading, and the queer people you love need you to be just as engaged and determined as we are.

Tip Toe airs tonight at 9pm on Channel 4.

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