Russell T Davies has warned that his Channel 4 drama Tip Toe addresses an “emergency” that will affect everyone, reaching far beyond the LGBTQ+ community.
The five-part drama explores the deteriorating relationship between long-time acquaintances and neighbours Leo (Alan Cumming) and Clive (David Morrissey), who have lived a door away from one another for more than a decade.
Despite this relative familiarity, they become locked in an escalating feud with disastrous consequences, which Davies views as a microcosm of the problem facing society at large.
While Tip Toe pays particular attention on rising prejudice and hate crimes towards the LGBTQ+ community, the screenwriter said at a BFI screening that the same levels of extreme alienation are occurring for numerous other groups.
“I think it’s a crisis happening day after day – and it’s anyone,” he began. “Everyone’s being weaponised against [each other]. You could make a Jewish version of this drama, you could make a disabled version of this drama, women could make this drama.
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“I see straight white men who could make this drama, feeling marginalised. It’s the temperature of the dialogue and the argument and the pitch of it – all driven by our phones – that’s alarming me greatly.”
Indeed, technology is cited as a key driver of the polarisation, with many of Clive’s intolerant or misinformed opinions originating from untrustworthy online sources, rather than anyone he comes across in day-to-day life.
Morrissey explained: “He’d rather believe these reinforced values by keyboard warriors, who he doesn’t see out there somewhere in the darkness, [instead of] the evidence of the person who’s standing in front of him.
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“As the show goes on, you see that these two men, in another way, could be friends – or they could agree to disagree in a more collegiate way. But he gets more and more driven, and angrier and angrier.”
He added: “It has to do with loneliness, it’s to do with lack of love, but it’s also to do with the fact that his darkest thoughts are being amplified again and again, and validated.”
Tip Toe also stars Elizabeth Berrington (Frauds), Denise Welch (Waterloo Road), Pooky Quesnel (Moonflower Murders), Iz Hesketh (Renegade Nell) and Paul Rhys (Wuthering Heights), among others.
Tip Toe premieres on Channel 4 on Sunday 31 May 2026.
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