Written by Russell T. Davies
Directed by Peter Hoar
Melba (to Leo): "I used to walk to into a room and go "Ta Da". Now I tip toe, just in case."
Now, this is the Russell T. Davies we know and love. If there's a project that best suited his feelings on the current political climate, it's this show. The first scene alone didn't hold back with delivering a shocker.
While I suspected that lead character Leo (Alan Cumming) might have been a goner, I didn't think the first scene would be him hanging from a lamppost with neighbour Clive (David Morrissey) appearing responsible for the death itself. Of course we had to go backwards from that moment.
Yup, the animosity between Leo and Clive stemmed from the former having a one night stand with a man named Eddie (Andrew Moss). Eddie also stole Leo's laptop and a barely clothed Leo locked himself out of his own house, forcing Clive to show some hospitality. Clive repaid it with some passive aggressive bullshit with a safe key box and thinly veiled homophobia.
While Clive almost seemed to derive a childish pleasure in being critical of Leo's lifestyle and lack of a relationship, his own home life wasn't anything to write about. Clive was constantly cheating on his fed up wife, Marie (Pooky Quesnel) and his sons Saul (Joseph Evans) and George (Jackson Connor) also had their own secret lives that Clive definitely wouldn't approve of.
There's a lot of talk of homophobia and transphobia being on the rise. Some of it had Leo attempting to downplay it until he got something of a wake up call from his friend, Melba (Paul Rhys) and trans employee Zee (Iz Hesketh). You can argue that it's not delivered in a subtle way but perhaps that's the point.
Leo's bar staff are an interesting enough bunch. Zee had to get out of a house of abusive roommates but I found Judy (Luyanda Unati Lewis-Nyawo) and Hanna (Shakeel Kimotho) a little more interesting. There's bar staff lads in both Mikey (Gabriel Clark) and Freddie (Jolyon Benson). The former didn't get much to do but the latter knew his employment rights, which didn't please Leo in the slightest.
Circling back to the politics of course, I find that both Leo and Melba are something of a dual representation of RTD. Melba felt like the political activist that RTD absolutely feels like he needs to be while Leo would be the one he's more like than he'd care to admit to being. That conversation at Canal Street felt revealing on that front.
- Channel 4 released the first two episodes online after the first one aired. The remaining three will be online from Sunday.
- Leo and George realised they were both on the same hook up app, Saul was silent sex camming, Marie was getting off to Slow Horses erotica and Clive was watching death videos.
- Leo moved to Manchester from Scotland in 1994 and contracted HIV from a former boyfriend who died six years later. Melba has an unrequited crush on Leo and went off on a conservative drag queen.
- Leo's former boyfriend Curtis (Charlie Condou) left him for a woman. Leo's friend Stephanie (Elizabeth Berrington) was revealed to be gender critical. She also appeared dead or unconscious in the opening scene.
- Standout music: The way Sam Smith's Unholy was used in that particular scene.
- Chronology: Most of the first episode took place ten days before Leo's death. Leo was 59.
This opening episode exposed RTD's strengths once again as a writer and it's clear as day that this was the type of thing that he'd rather be writing these days. Both Alan Cumming and David Morrissey are great but I actually thought that Paul Rhys kind of stole the show from them.
Rating: 8 out of 10
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