The first promotional images of the upcoming Russell T Davies show Tip Toe have been released showing Alan Cumming and David Morrissey.
The upcoming British show is the fourth series Davies has set in Manchester’s gay scene following Queer as Folk, Bob and Rose, and the dual stories of Cucumber and Banana.
In the five-part series, Cumming plays Leo, the funny and dynamic owner of a bar called Spit & Polish in Manchester’s Gay Village.
Morrissey plays Clive, an unsmiling and troubled man who has lived next-door to Leo for almost 15 years.
Speaking of the new show Davies said he was excited to be making a new show for the UK’s Channel 4.
“It’s my honour to combine my old home, Channel 4, with my second home, Canal Street. This is a show I had to write because the world is getting stranger, tougher and darker, and frankly, the fight is on.”
Additional cast members for the new show include Pooky Quesnel, Jackson Connor, Joseph Evans, Elizabeth Berrington, Iz Hesketh, Shakeel Kimotho, Luyanda Unati Lewis-Nyawo, Paul Rhys, Charlie Condou, and Denis Welch.
Both Morrisey and Davies have worked with the writer and producer Davies in the past, they both appeared as gust actors in Doctor Who.
Russell T Davies has become one of the most in demand writers and producers in the UK with a long line of successful productions on this CV.
Davies has had an impressive career to date. After the success of the British version of Queer as Folk, the show was remade in the USA in 2000 and a new version was launched in 2022.
In 2001 he delivered another series set in Manchester, Bob and Rose. Starring Alan Davies and Lesley Sharp it told the story of a gay man who falls in love with a woman.
In 2015 he brought us the interlinked series Cucumber and Banana. Both were set in Manchester, Cucumber told the story of a gay man having a midlife crisis, while Banana dived deeper into some of the stories of subsidiary characters whose lives were interwoven through the weekly series.
More recently Davies got high praise for his drama It’s a Sin which powerfully depicted the journey of the LGBTIQA+ communities in London in the early days of the AIDS crisis.
Along the way he’s also brought us many other outstanding series including Second Coming, Cassanova, A Very English Scandal, Nolly, and Years and Years.
In 2005 he brought British series Doctor Who back to television screens, and created the spinoff shows Torchwood and The Sarsh Janes Adventures.
He left Doctor Who in 2010 but returned to the showrunner position in 2023 for two series featuring Ncuti Gatwa, spin-off series The War Between the Land and the Seas has just arrived on Disney+.
