Filled with fury and fear, there’s a reason this British drama is so personal

Tip Toe ★★★★

A searing drama inspired by the UK’s rise in anti-LGBTIQ+ hate crimes since 2019, Tip Toe starts in the immediate aftermath of violence. Within the show’s first minute, we see four people react in shock and agony to a confronting scene in Manchester’s empty early morning streets, with their sobs and screams cutting through the quiet.

Set in 2026, Tip Toe charts the 10 days leading up to that, focusing on a feud between two neighbours: flamboyant gay bar owner Leo (Alan Cumming) and Clive (David Morrissey), a quietly menacing, out-of-work electrician.

Created by Russell T. Davies, the prolific Welsh screenwriter best known for steering the Doctor Who reboot, Tip Toe is the newest addition to his groundbreaking canon of queer British television, spanning ’90s drama Queer as Folk, dystopian sci-fi Years and Years and It’s a Sin, set during the AIDS epidemic in ’80s London.

But this is something new from Davies, a series full of fury and fear not at the failures of the past or future, but right now. It’s not always eloquent or subtle – especially when characters go on didactic rants about Trump or trans rights, an indulgence of Davies’ to turn characters into mouthpieces as needed.

Still, Tip Toe’s five episodes arrive with urgency, asking how far the pendulum will swing back on equality – for LGBTIQA+ people and all minorities. But at 59 years old, Leo doesn’t want to think about it: “Now, I don’t have to care as much,” he tells fiery friend Melba over drinks. “I have marched. Now it’s someone else’s turn.”

Leo’s life is filled with friends, sex and Spit and Polish – his bar on Manchester’s Canal Street, the gay neighbourhood immortalised in Queer As Folk as an LGBTIQA+ haven. But the culture is shifting, as resident barfly Melba spells out: “If there’s a war, you’re on the frontline, my darling. You have trans bar staff – that’s the battleground right there.”

Backed by a strong cast (particularly Paul Rhys, who devours Melba’s alcohol-fused polemics), Cumming and Morrissey play Leo and Clive as completely out of sync, each incapable of understanding the other.

Tapping into his own campy charisma, Cumming is brash, bold and defiant as Leo – but lets the persona slip in moments, hinting at baggage he ignores for a simple, fun, gay life.

Meanwhile, Morrissey plays Clive’s emotions in micro, potentially hidden even from himself. It’s an icy aggression, with waves raging under a thin sheet that could crack at Leo’s lightest joke. The scariest part? You might know it well.

Tip Toe is now streaming on Binge.