00:00That's quite an episode.
00:02All the journalists I've spoken to, that's the look I get.
00:04And I'm like, oh God, maybe I'll just wait for a little while.
00:06You'll be a different man after this.
00:07Until I'm really happy or really sad. I don't know what's the best frame of mind.
00:10Russell T Davies.
00:12Hello, Johnny.
00:13Hello, sir.
00:13How do we get into talking about this show without giving away big, massive, fat spoilers?
00:17Because it really slaps you in the face within 30 seconds.
00:19It starts with a shock and then keeps running after that.
00:22Just tell people to come and watch it, really.
00:24For some reason, I convinced myself that this might have been a bit more of a knockabout.
00:29Odd couple.
00:30Oh, did you?
00:31Deck the halls.
00:32Sort of like people are on the opposite end of the spectrum and they kind of find their way together.
00:36And immediately it's like, nope, nope, we're not there.
00:38No, that's partly why it's got the opening.
00:40It's got, because it's a bit with Alan in the cast.
00:42You might think, this is the new booze grooves.
00:45Let's go and have a laugh.
00:46And actually the opening makes absolutely clear you're going to sail into some tough territory here.
00:52It is a laugh. There's some good stuff in it.
00:54There's some really lively characters in it and some funny stuff, but the subject is tough.
00:58And I think you've got to be honest with an audience and say, this is where we are.
01:02This is how far it's going to go. Come and watch.
01:05Let's talk about Manchester for a second.
01:07Yeah.
01:07You're returning to the kind of the queer experience in Manchester, which has been like fertile ground before.
01:11I think I might have read that you said like Cucumber felt like an almost a spiritual successor to Queer
01:18as Folk.
01:19Yeah.
01:19We're 10 years on or 11 years on from that.
01:22This has a lot of the warmth and the cheek and the heart and the lust perhaps of some of
01:28those, but feels altogether maybe a bit more despondent at times, maybe even angry.
01:34Darker.
01:34Do you think this better reflects where we are in society in 2026?
01:38I do think that's a picture of where we are right now.
01:40You look at Queer as Folk, which is full of hope.
01:42It's actually a character from Queer as Folk appears in Cucumber and a character from Cucumber now appears in Tiptoe.
01:47So they are the RTD universe.
01:49If anyone cares about that, only me, I care about that.
01:53But yes, I think that's where we are now.
01:56I think Queer as Folk is full of youth and joy.
02:00And bear in mind that it's rebellious.
02:02Bear in mind that that was set in a world of Section 28 and it was before the equal age
02:06of consent.
02:07There was no laws about marriage or anything like that.
02:10So it's kind of coming out of fighting with a laugh.
02:13Queer as Folk, Cucumber is more middle age.
02:15It's kind of settling.
02:17It's resonating with the after effects of the age crisis.
02:20Then, of course, it did the age crisis and it's a sin.
02:22This is now where we are now, which is not where I expected to be.
02:26If you'd asked me during the making of Queer as Folk, what will it be like in 2026?
02:30I would have said we have everything.
02:32We'll have laws.
02:33We'll have equality.
02:33It'll be fine.
02:34And we get here.
02:35We have an awful lot of things like that that are now being weaponized against us as a community.
02:40And the precious visibility that we sought almost sometimes feels like a trap.
02:47Because now we're visible.
02:49What if people don't like what they see?
02:51Well, you're reminding me of Paul Rees' character in this, the brilliant Paul Rees.
02:55He says that being queer is a political act.
02:58Yes.
02:58And it made me think a lot of Russell T Davies' shows and dramas can be described as political acts.
03:05You're not a man who shies away from either his opinions or sometimes the aggressively differing positions that people have
03:12in society.
03:13And in this show, it feels like everyone, maybe this is a wrong turn of phrase, but gets to wave
03:19their pitchfork at one point.
03:21Like there's a lot of different kind of opinions that are being shared and the frustrations from different generations and
03:26all sorts of stuff.
03:27Yes.
03:27And it made me wonder, was writing this kind of Russell T Davies' way of kind of battling with where
03:34you stand on all these different things or is it simply kind of character driven?
03:41It is wrestling with them.
03:43That's where the tension comes out.
03:44You have a gay man living next door to a straight man.
03:47And also, let's point out, they've been living next door to each other for 14 years with nothing going wrong,
03:53because I think that's the state of the world.
03:55I think now things are weaponizing and brutalizing online.
03:58And what used to be an angry online voice, I swear, is setting foot into the real world, that the
04:05threats are becoming actions.
04:07And that's terrifying.
04:09I just said this morning that actually, if I was telling you a story about a Jew finding himself under
04:14threat, you wouldn't blink, you wouldn't question me for a second.
04:17You'd be saying, yes, of course, this should have been written last year, because it's on its way.
04:21So the fact that that is happening means that everyone who's being other than it, whether it's race or whether
04:26it's disability, whether it's women, everyone's finding themselves up against this online voice,
04:31which is so full of anger and hatred and viciousness that we're all in danger.
04:37Everyone could be othered in some shape or form.
04:39So it's that galvanizing this drama, which is angry, but it's also a good thriller.
04:46I do have to keep saying that.
04:47There's a great big thriller, the mechanics of a thriller ticking away through all this, about one misplaced front door
04:53key and the world of disaster your life can enter once your front door isn't safe anymore.
04:57Do you feel like less of like an optimist at this stage of your life and career?
05:04Because there has been this core of, and it's not missing in this either, there's a core of hope that
05:08comes to a lot of your work.
05:11And yeah, watching this and seeing a kind of a dark turn and it's, you know, you look outside the
05:15window, you switch on your TV, you look at your phone these days,
05:17it feels like you're being bombarded with kind of negativity, some of it real, some of it just the way
05:23the algorithms are kind of funneling this towards you.
05:27Do you feel at this stage of your career you're kind of less hopeful or less optimistic than you were
05:31before?
05:31I mean, I'm aware of becoming an old man shouting at Clouder, old man shouting at iCloud.
05:36That's my joke.
05:39But it's a worry that we've always swung this way and swung that way.
05:43We swing left, we swing right.
05:45Someone says in the drama that the Leo says, you know, you get Conservative, then you get Labour, you get
05:49Republican, then you get Democrat.
05:51And for the first time, I can't see an end to our troubles.
05:54I think that actually this is no longer about left or right anymore.
05:56This is about massively powerful tech barons over whom we have no power whatsoever.
06:02We have no voice.
06:03They don't even look at us.
06:04We don't exist to them except as something to be monetized.
06:07How do you argue with that algorithm?
06:09How do you argue with it?
06:10We have no comeback whatsoever.
06:12And Johnny, maybe you and I can cope.
06:14If you're 10 years old, you can't cope.
06:15That's been funneled into their eyes.
06:17If we saw the stuff they're watching, it is a miracle we're not up in arms burning down those antennae.
06:23But we're not.
06:24And the world is carrying on and carrying on.
06:26I can't see it getting better.
06:27That's my fear.
06:28That's why I wanted to write this.
06:29It was like, a vote's not going to shift this.
06:32Whatever government we have has got enough work to be doing just to get money in our pockets.
06:36What is going to shift this?
06:38What, the goodwill of Silicon Valley?
06:40Nope.
06:41The name of the show is Tiptoe.
06:43Tiptoe.
06:44And not to give too much away, but it's explained how in various cultures nowadays we've got
06:50to kind of feel like we need to tread more carefully and quietly and hide ourselves behind
06:55a bushel not to be in the face of a backlash.
06:59Working in the media and making big programs, is that more of a concern for you than it used
07:04to be, the idea of backlash to whatever it might be?
07:08An opinion you might share, a show that you might make, anything that you might do?
07:12It is.
07:12Partly I wrote this because that is happening to me.
07:15The reaction against me in ways I'm not going to describe because it will become a story
07:19and will happen to me again.
07:21But there are things that happen at work and things that happen at home, which are direct
07:26threats to me, threatening my livelihood and my physical safety.
07:31It's actually happened to me.
07:33You can name people that's happened to as well.
07:34There's nothing extraordinary about me here.
07:37So it is.
07:37I have to react to this stuff.
07:38I have to write about it.
07:40And I just wish I could find a way out of it.
07:43I think you need to be a magician to write that or a fantasist.
07:46But yeah, that's why it's from the heart, this thing.
07:49That's why I believe in it.
07:50I think it is integrity because it's from me.
07:52Well, I think a lot of people, myself included, are very envious that you're able to take
07:56those kind of feelings and then turn them into these incredible stories.
08:00I do know I'm lucky.
08:01I'm honestly a lucky man.
08:02But I like to treat that like I think I treat that with responsibility.
08:04And I work hard as a result because I know an awful lot of writers would love this opportunity.
08:08So I put the work in, Johnny.
08:10I swear.
08:11Well, it's a thrill ride, this one.
08:13I've actually got one episode still to go.
08:15And I kind of don't want to watch it because I know.
08:18That's quite an episode.
08:19Yeah.
08:20All the journalists I've spoken to, that's the look I get.
08:22And I'm like, oh, God.
08:23Good luck.
08:23Maybe I'll just wait for a little while.
08:24You'll be a different man.
08:25Until I'm really happy or really sad.
08:27I don't know what's the best frame of mind.
08:28Russell, pleasure, mate.
08:30I'll see you down the line.
08:30Nice to see you.
08:32I see you down the line is what you say when people are dead.
08:35I've started saying that a lot.
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