It’s been a while since Russell T Davies released a new show, so Tip Toe was pretty much guaranteed a spot near the top of my watch list. This feels very much like a show of the moment, rooted in the fear, anger, and hopelessness of being queer in the UK right now. One character says that he used to walk into a room going ta da, but now he tip toes just in case, and that basically captures the entire series. Across five episodes of about fifty minutes each, it mixes thriller elements with social drama to reflect the current reality of rising homophobia.
Set in present day Manchester, the series places two neighbors with totally opposing worldviews side by side, then builds the story around the friction between them. The result is both a tense watch and a genuinely disturbing reflection of real life. Leo is nearly sixty, runs a local queer bar, and has recently separated from his longtime partner, leaving him to readjust to single life. Next door lives Clive and his wife, from whom he’s now estranged after apparently cheating on her with another woman, their hot twenty five year old son Saul, who does webcam work for girls online, and their sixteen year old son George, who we eventually discover is secretly gay. After one of Leo’s hookups goes badly, he finds himself locked out of his own home and forced to ask the neighbors for help. That’s where the story really starts to turn. Clive offers him a spare key to use in future emergencies, and through these seemingly minor exchanges between the two men, an uncomfortable tension begins to take shape. Their completely different ideas about life and sexuality gradually become clear. Clive is angry, unable to find stable work, and generally full of resentment, whereas Leo is instinctively compassionate, taking care of his employees, keeping his business afloat, and creating a genuine sense of community around him. A peculiar, cold sort of friendship, assuming that’s what it is, begins to develop when Leo gives Clive a job. Things become far more complicated, though, when George comes out to Leo. What initially looks like a straightforward effort to help a closeted teenager living with conservative, furious parents grows into a situation neither man expected. Running beneath everything is the ever-present threat of hatred, violence, and real danger for people who simply want to live openly. Plenty unfolds over the five episodes, and saying much more would give too much away. Just be prepared for an uncomfortable series that goes hard on the thriller side.
The two lead performances are both genuinely excellent. Alan Cumming gives Leo humanity, irony, and vulnerability, while the actor playing Clive avoids reducing him to a one dimensional villain. Instead, he presents a man caught between his fears, his prejudices, and the sense that the world has moved on without him. The show isn’t only interested in examining Clive’s mentality; it also pays close attention to Leo’s seemingly limitless patience as he deals with him. Their conversations feel like authentic examinations of how fear and radicalization travel through social media and group thinking, and how language can gradually become real-world violence. Through Melba, an older gay man who regularly visits Leo’s bar, the series reminds us that rights our community once assumed were secure are coming under threat again. Leo can’t even feel safe in his own home: the homophobia next door literally seeps through the shared wall, so he can never completely lower his guard. Clive, on the other hand, truly believes the entire world is working against him. The tension grows throughout the story, which is told in flashback with pieces of the present threaded through it. We know the outcome from the very beginning, but the hook is finding out precisely how it happened. As entertainment, it’s somewhat uneven. I understand what the writers are trying to remind us of, but some of the monologues felt as though they were pushing the point a little too hard. Still, it’s an engaging and thought provoking watch. To keep us from drifting toward this bleak future, the show makes a strong case for why building and protecting the LGBTQ+ community, and really all communities, matters more than ever. It feels like a warning aimed at society as a whole: hate can become normal surprisingly quickly, and equality is never something you can assume is safe once it’s been won. (8/10)
