It’s a Sin
BOXSET
Russell T Davies’s new series is set in London’s gay community during the 1980s just as the Aids epidemic was taking hold.
Following the lives of a group of young friends as they arrive in the capital looking for love and adventure, It’s a
Sin is as much about the exuberance of youth and the excitement of being on the cusp of something as it is about the dark shadow of illness and death that hung over a whole generation.
Ritchie (Olly Alexander), an aspiring actor from the Isle of Wight; Roscoe (Omari Douglas), estranged from his deeply religious Nigerian family who are intent on “curing” him of his homosexuality; and gentle Colin (Callum Scott Howells) from Wales end up sharing a flat with Jill (Lydia West) and Ash (Nathaniel Curtis), Ritchie’s close friends from university. They all have a lot of fun but then reports from America about a deadly new virus affecting the immune system begin to fill the news bulletins...
Young gay men who at that time were already made to feel ashamed of their sexuality were further stigmatised by an illness that appeared to be “punishing” them for their very existence. It is a tough watch at times – the tragedy of all those young lives cut short and the attitudes on display, even from some of the characters’ parents, are breathtakingly ignorant and unpleasant. Davies’s writing comes from a place of knowledge – he is of that generation of gay men who lost many friends to Aids, and this feels like both a raucous celebration of their (sadly curtailed) joyous youth and a tender tribute to their memory.