Russell T Davies brought a new Manchester-set drama to Channel 4 at 9pm, opening on a harrowing scene on a regular residential street before pulling back to explain how two men ended up there. The series puts Alan Cumming at the centre as Leo, a Canal Street bar owner, opposite David Morrissey as electrician Clive.
That setup is what makes the tip toe review search land now: this is not a quiet character piece, but a prime-time broadcast aimed at the current culture wars inside LGBTQ+ communities. Davies, working again with the executive producer and director of It's a Sin, has shaped the show as a powerful, nuanced and urgent look at a world where even a friend of Leo's says, “I used to walk into a room and go: ‘Ta-da!’ Now I tiptoe, just in case …”
The first scene does not give the game away. It lands hard, then rewinds a few weeks, and that backward jump is the engine of the drama. Viewers are asked to sit with the image first and wait for the story of Leo and Clive to catch up to it, which turns the opening into a question of pressure, choices and fallout rather than simple shock.
That is where the series finds its bite. It is framed by the familiar city streets of Manchester, but it is really about how loudly people can still claim space, and how carefully they may now feel they must move through it. The reunion of Davies with the It's a Sin creative team gives the show a sense of authority, but the sharper force comes from the contrast between public confidence and private caution.
What happens next is already built into the structure: the drama keeps rewinding until it reaches the chain of events that put Leo and Clive in the opening scene. The answer matters less as a twist than as an explanation of how a moment of crisis grows out of a city, a community and a time when every gesture can feel loaded.
