Tip Toe spoilers follow – including the ending, in episode 5, now streaming on Channel 4.
Beyond his work on Doctor Who, Russell T Davies rarely revisits his own material, choosing instead to forge ahead with new stories each time. The same is also true of Tip Toe, his brilliant new Channel 4 drama which is very much rooted in the here and now.
Yet even with its current setting, Russell's latest is still connected, thematically speaking, with his previous show, It's a Sin, in the way they both explore what it means to be gay at a difficult time in Britain.
Tip Toe stars Alan Cumming as Leo, a bar owner on Manchester's Canal Street who clashes with his neighbour Clive. What starts out as a few small conflicts and awkward disagreements soon escalates, until the character of Clive comes to embody the widespread homophobia that remains in our society, four decades after the events of It's a Sin.
It's tempting to say little has changed, except the way such prejudice reveals itself has indeed evolved, and not for the better.
In this exclusive interview, Digital Spy caught up with Tip Toe creator Russell T Davies, as well as the two leading stars, Alan Cumming and David Morrissey, to discuss these comparisons, tweaks made to the ending, and the scenes that stuck with them most.
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Tip Toe taps into very important conversations that we rarely hear on TV. In fact, the last show to explore similar ideas on screen was probably It's a Sin. Do you hope Tip Toe will be received in a similar way? Or do you expect a very different kind of response?
Russell T Davies: I'm kind of surprised, actually, because I think it's kind of angrier than It's a Sin, and in a way, has more to say. It's a Sin was almost a matter of historical record, what happened, and It's a Sin was fundamentally sad. I mean, let's be honest, there was just a profound sadness behind that, that you can't avoid. I avoided getting angry with It's a Sin, because there's certain pieces that work like Normal Heart.
I had a long conversation myself over the years saying, 'Why don't AIDS pieces particularly work on British television?' – and I came to the conclusion that they were very angry. The French movie 120 BPM, that one's furious, and I reckoned that actually the fury might drive some people away. So, for It's a Sin, I fell into the opposite. I went in quite domestically, gently with families and friendships.
With Tip Toe, although we have families and friendships, I thought I was getting angry about something that actually not everyone was getting angry about, that we should all be angry about.
Within that, there's a great big story, and there's lots of laughs as well. There's tenderness, gentleness in there. It's hard when you know the issues become the story, so we talk about the issues, and you forget that actually the story is the story, and it's full of lots of good stuff in there. How will it be received? I hope it is loved.
Alan Cumming: I hope it is received as well as It's a Sin. I loved It's a Sin. It was a landmark thing.
David Morrissey: Likewise. When you're doing work like this, the audience is at the end of the process rather than the beginning for a reason, really.
We're just hoping that they respond to the show as many people have who've watched it so far. They've been on our journey with us, they recognise the story we're telling, and that's what you want, really, is to recognise the world that we're portraying.
You're right to say it's a very rounded story. Tip Toe is hard to watch at times, but it's not just doom and gloom either. There's all kinds of scenes that stay with you in this story. Looking back, which particular scenes really stuck with you?
DM: For me, there's a scene where Alan confronts me after I've been particularly horrible to Leo, and he just says, "You'll believe all this stuff online, but you don't believe me right in front of you."
What's really important for me is that I don't look at the person in front of me, I don't listen to the person in front of me, I don't see the evidence to my eyes. What I believe is the stuff I watch online or listen to online, and that encapsulated the show for me.
AC: I've been thinking about the scene on Canal Street when Clive's getting into the taxi, I'm giving him the money, and I talk about being HIV positive. For me, it feels like this whole history of queerness. It's like a little play within the entire — there's many little bits within the show that are like little plays within the play — and I feel the fact that I bow at the end of it. It's got this really amazing sort of almost Brechtian kind of thing to it.
I just love the idea that people don't understand what people love, that we went through that, what we had to put up with. It also shows the cumulative effect of that prejudice and sort of conspiracy theory thing. I really loved that moment.
It was quite early on that we shot that, and I felt like that night was the night that we really hit something in our whole... It was one of the first really big deep dives we took, so I always think of that one.
RTD: Alan actually took a bow at the end of every scene [Laughs].
I'm gonna grab two scenes, because I think this drama is going to be remembered for a lot of anger, and then some shocking events.
The two tenderest scenes in it, I think, are there's a long 10 minute sequence of Alan texting George (Jackson Connor), who's the young lad next door, which is so full of love and delicacy. They have no dialogue, they just type, and they both play it so beautifully with so much care.
My agent read that scene and said, "That won't work, there's too much texting." Back off agent. I'm very proud of it!
And then there's the scene that David has with Pooky (Quesnel), in the bathroom. It's just a devastating marriage, but they're both very kind with each other, even as they say the most terrible things.
RTD: Their whole history is laid bare. I don't think this show is remembered for those moments of tenderness, as well as the noisier stuff. And you could not have better actors doing your stuff.
It was so interesting to me how you included title cards at the end to explain the future of each character and what happens to them beyond the show, as if it was based on a true story. Can you talk us through that storytelling decision and the impact of it?
RTD: They weren't written in the script as cards. They weren't necessarily written to appear. I just had to keep typing. I practically went into prose, writing a novel.
I did that hanging, which was so devastating. I knew I had the very last scene there with Alan and Elizabeth (Berrington), but it felt like too big a jump to just go from the hanging to that, so... I was genuinely interested in what happened to them all.
Oh, George, who never comes out right. You could sentimentalise George, say "Oh, he'll be fine," and as you know, he's going to be a drunk for life.
AC: Also, when we were shooting it, we didn't know how it would be done, whether it's a voiceover.
RTD: We talked about all sorts. We talked about whether it should be a behind-the-scenes extra where you two read it out to camera, or whether it would be cards. Basically the best version was when I appeared in a wingback chair and read it out to the audience. Outrageous. [Laughs]
So we had no idea how to do it. I thought we were going to go in for months of discussion. We looked at the first edit and Peter Hoar, such a brilliant director, had done it like that. "Oh, that works. We like that." Very, very clever.
Then we argued about the placing of the cards exactly, and ordering. With Saul, it was very hard to get Saul in there, because Saul's run away already.
DM: Did you argue about the font?
RTD: Yeah, a little bit with the font and spacing those captions, but I love that. I'm really, very proud of it.
It's interesting since now we're selling it to foreign buyers. One of the sales reps, having not seen it, was going, "Do we discover what happens to the rest of them in the end?" She was very, very keen on that. So I thought, "Oh, good. People want to know." It's like reading a novel. You want to know what happens at the end. I like that kind of thing.
Tip Toe is available now on Channel 4.
After teaching in England and South Korea, David turned to writing in Germany, where he covered everything from superhero movies to the Berlin Film Festival.
In 2019, David moved to London to join Digital Spy, where he could indulge his love of comics, horror and LGBTQ+ storytelling as Deputy TV Editor, and later, as Acting TV Editor.
David has spoken on numerous LGBTQ+ panels to discuss queer representation and in 2020, he created the Rainbow Crew interview series, which celebrates LGBTQ+ talent on both sides of the camera via video content and longform reads.
Beyond that, David has interviewed all your faves, including Henry Cavill, Pedro Pascal, Olivia Colman, Patrick Stewart, Ncuti Gatwa, Jamie Dornan, Regina King, and more — not to mention countless Drag Race legends.
As a freelance entertainment journalist, David has bylines across a range of publications including Empire Online, Radio Times, INTO, Highsnobiety, Den of Geek, The Digital Fix and Sight & Sound.
