It’s A Sin
Channel 4, Fridays, 9pm
You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. That’s been the case with every Russell T. Davies series, from the groundbreaking Queer As Folk in 1999, through his revival of Doctor Who in 2005, right up to Years And Years, which predicted every mad thing that’s happened in the world since it aired in 2019. But now, It’s A Sin, his new five-part epic – which can and should be watched in one massive binge session on All 4 – takes the laughter and tears to a whole new level. The sadness you’d expect, considering it’s about the onset of AIDS in ’80s Britain, and unflinchingly shows us the pain and death that it caused. But it’s the laughs, even in the face of all the tragedy, that marks It’s A Sin as definitive Russell T Davies.
The series thrusts us into the giddy lives of a group of young gay men in the early ’80s, who are finding true freedom in London. There’s Roscoe (Amari Douglas – dazzling), who escapes triumphantly from his religious family. Then unassuming Welsh lad Colin (Callum Scott Howells – adorable) is awakened by his new, gloriously outrageous London friends. And Ritchie (Olly Alexander – stunning) flies in the face of his straightlaced Isle of Wight parents to try to live his best life as a budding actor. And they all have rampant, joyful, unapologetic sex. Well, maybe not Colin. Davies shows us their brightness and brilliance, before the virus strikes. We’ve seen myriad AIDS dramas before, but none like this. It’s not so much the British version, but the Russell T Davies one – as spectacularly entertaining, deeply funny, yet blazingly angry and devastating as anything and everything he’s ever written.