Channel 4On a stereotypically rainy day in Manchester, we’re ushered into a kitchen that at first glance appears to be in a normal terraced house.
There are dishes in the sinks and food in the fridge, but a quick look outside at the blue skies and sunshine gives the game away – this is actually a TV set.
The occupier of the house? Alan Cumming. And sitting at the kitchen table is TV writing legend, Russell T Davies.
The BBC has been exclusively invited behind the scenes to meet the cast and crew of Davies’ upcoming thriller, Tip Toe.
It tells the story of two neighbours – one gay, one straight – whose ongoing feud gets darker and darker as one of them falls deeper into the world of online disinformation, with disastrous consequences for both.
Mandy Ingham / BBC News‘I wish television could change the world’
Dealing with such serious topics, but still managing to be funny is well-trodden ground for Davies, but while It’s a Sin looked back on the 80s and Years and Years was set in a dystopian future, Tip Toe is dealing with the here-and-now.
“I see the world getting worse and worse these days to be honest,” Davies says. “I am very worried about the future for my nieces and nephews.”
Channel 4I ask if he hopes the show could have a positive, real-world impact.
It’s A Sin, for example, saw a huge increase in HIV testing rates, Mr Bates vs The Post Office brought the nation’s attention to the Horizon IT scandal.
“I wish television could change the world,” he says. “I’d have written more and changed it faster if I could. I do feel bound to comment on the world though.”
‘It’s so relevant, and so needed’
Alan Cumming plays Leo Struthers, a 59-year-old who owns a bar in Manchester’s Gay Village. Casting him is a personal triumph for Davies, who tells me he’s been trying to get Cumming to appear in one of his shows for more than 20 years.
The role of Leo was pitched to Cumming before the script was even written, and the actor was “blown away” by the concept because of a twist at the start of episode one: his character is dead.
“As the series goes on and we all get to like everybody, and worry for them, you almost forget [I’m dead],” Cumming explains. “But we don’t know how it’s happened, or when it’s happened in the story. It’s really clever, it’s suspenseful.
“It’s also so relevant and so needed.”
Channel 4David Morrissey plays Clive Goss, Leo’s next door neighbour.
It’s the first time Morrissey and Cumming have worked together, despite being friends (and at at one point, real-life neighbours) for more than 40 years.
“We have to do some pretty tough stuff, but the great thing about being with an actor who is a friend is that you can really push it,” Morrissey tells me during a break from filming one of the show’s tense, emotional scenes in the Goss family home.
“We can be in a scene which is very confrontational,” he says, but adds that the minute the director shouts, cut: “We’re hugging each other and making sure each other are alright.”
‘When your dad’s David Morrissey and he’s telling you off’
Alongside a raft of household names on the cast list, Joseph Evans and Jackson Connor – who play brothers Saul and George Goss – are relative newcomers.
In a quick break between filming a frosty scene with their on-screen dad David Morrissey, they sit down for a chat in what would be their front garden – if their home wasn’t a plywood set in a Manchester film studio.
You’d be forgiven for thinking they’re actually related – they look very similar and, just like real-life brothers, they’re making fun of each other and finishing each others’ sentences.
Ann Gannon / BBC News‘Things are souring’
Davies’ break-through drama Queer as Folk, which first aired in 1999, was something of a cultural reset for on-screen representation.
In the 26 years since, Davies worries things have started to get worse.
“When we were shooting Queer as Folk, if you’d have said to me, ‘In 25 years’ time, what will gay life and queer life be like?’ I would’ve said, ‘We’ll have achieved equality, everything will be fine, and we’ll all be hand-in-hand, skipping down the street’,” he says with a wry smile.
“We kind of got close to that about 10 years ago, but actually I think things are souring. I feel more hostility in the air, more aggression towards us.”
“While the world keeps changing, there will always be something new to write about,” he says.
“That’s the plan, I’ll just keep going.”
Episode 1 and 2 of Tip Toe are out on Channel 4, Sunday 31 May and Monday 1 June.
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