I’m gay. I tried to think about how my own shame has been internalised
Russell T Davies’ new drama, It’s A Sin hits our screens this week. Georgia Humphreys chats to the writer, plus star Olly Alexander, to find out more
The PPE, the paranoia, the distancing and isolation... writer Russell T Davies agrees there are parallels between the world of his new drama, It’s A Sin – about the Aids epidemic – and the Covid pandemic we are living through.
Filming of the five-part series ended a month before the first lockdown last March and it’s now about to air on Channel 4.
The plot centres around five young people who we first meet in London in 1981 (and who Russell says are all inspired by people he knew at the time) – gay men Ritchie (Years & Years frontman Olly Alexander), Roscoe (Omari Douglas), Colin (Callum Scott howells) and Ash (Nathaniel Curtis), and their best friend Jill (Lydia West).
As their lives collide and
friendships blossom, there’s romance, nights out and parties at their lively flat.
But a new virus, HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) is on the rise.
“We all miss people who we’ve lost and, within the fiction, I wanted to create people you’d miss”, says Welshman Russell, 57, whose husband, Andrew Smith, died from a
brain tumour in 2018.
“I’d love viewers to be sitting there in 10, 20 years time going, ‘Remember Ritchie? Remember that flat full of people? that gang?’.
“If I can achieve that, I’m very, very happy.”
Olly, 30, was excited to play a character whose attitude and response to the Aids crisis is likely to surprise the audience.
“Ritchie’s is not necessarily a voice you would expect to hear in a show about this topic,” muses the harrogate-born star.
“But Ritchie’s whole life is led by fear and a deep shame, and he’s hiding so much from himself, from his friends, from his family. To cover all of that up, he’s decided to be the bestlooking, funniest, person in the room.
“he thinks if he can make people smile, get into bed with a boy, if he can get on stage, do a great performance, if he can shine in this way, then he can overcome all the other stuff that he’s hiding, and that I 100% related to.
“I just know what that feels like. I myself am a performer and I’m gay, and I’ve tried to think about my own shame and how that’s been internalised.”
It’s A Sin explores how many people denied the existence of Aids in the early eighties.
Olly says the role has made him realise how many people are “unaware of this specific moment of history, and how people were treated”.
“I think there are people who were around at the time – and gay people who were around at the time – who have an awful lot to learn from this,” suggests Russell, who’s famous for his five-year stint at the helm of Doctor Who, plus the groundbreaking drama Queer As Folk.
“It’s very important to say that not everyone lived their gay life like this or was concerned by this.
“There was one scene I was always dying to include – I never did include it – that happened for real, for me.
“I was once sitting in the pub with my mates and we were all getting ready to distribute leaflets and probably going on a march or something, and it was a gay pub, and a gay man came to us and said, ‘I’m sick of this. I don’t know anyone who’s got HIV and I don’t know anyone who ever will’.
“And that was that man’s point of view, he didn’t want to be defined by a virus and I think that’s absolutely fair.
“So, it’s a tricky one. everyone could learn more, but I don’t want to be the person lecturing.”
■ It’s A Sin is on Channel 4 on Friday, at 9pm