Russell T Davies has made a new Channel 4 drama called Tip Toe, and he has placed it in the middle of a Manchester feud that turns ugly fast. The five-part series follows gay bar manager Leo, played by Alan Cumming, and his reserved neighbour Clive, played by David Morrissey, on Canal Street.
Davies said the drama is built around a world where hostility no longer stays online. He said political rhetoric, toxic bullying and misinformation can pour fuel on a dispute between neighbours, and he warned that the climate around LGBTQ+ people feels worse than it has in years. “We’ve got this slide back into something as bad as I can remember, if not worse, because now people know what they’re doing,” he said.
That is the reason Tip Toe is landing now. Davies is using one of Manchester’s most recognisable queer streets as the setting for a story about how fast acceptance can be tested. Canal Street was once the backdrop for Queer As Folk, the 1999 drama that regularly shot there and followed the lives of three gay men. Tip Toe returns to the same part of the city, but the mood is darker, and the contrast is deliberate.
Davies argued that inclusion and representation may now seem settled, yet the atmosphere around them has changed for the worse. He said online abuse has become routine, adding that he is often called a groomer and a paedophile because of his support for trans rights. In his view, that rhetoric does not stay abstract. It bleeds into real life, gives angry people cover, and can turn a neighbourly feud into something much nastier.
Melba’s line in the first episode puts that shift in human terms. “I used to walk into a room and go: ‘Ta-da!’” he says. “Now I tip toe. Just in case.” The name fits the drama’s tone, but it also captures its warning: the fear is no longer distant, and the instinct to hide has started to feel ordinary.
The show does not yet have a broadcast date, leaving the key question hanging over the project even as its message is clear. Davies has drawn a straight line between political permission, online abuse and everyday hostility, and Tip Toe looks set to ask how much damage that chain can do before anyone breaks it.
