‘Tip Toe’ Creator Explains Starz Show’s Brutal Ending and Why He Never Thought It’d Air in the US

Note: This story contains spoilers from “Tip Toe” Episode 5.“Tip Toe” ended the way it promised from its very first scene: with the hanging of Alan Cumming’s Leo in his quiet Manchester neighborhood. The series, which first debuted on the U.K.’s Channel 4 before being sold across Europe and landing at Starz for distribution in the U.S. and Canada, followed the escalating feud between Leo, a gay man, and his neighbor Clive (David Morrissey), a straight family man in a strained marriage who had been steadily radicalized by the constant stream of anti-LGBTQ and anti-progressive rhetoric online. The fifth and final episode saw tensions between the two neighbors take a dangerous turn as the secrets of Clive’s two sons came to light: one is a gay teenager, while the other works as an online sex worker. Meanwhile, the family hosted a group of loud football (soccer) fans with a penchant for toxic masculinity. When a video surfaced of Clive helping a young drag queen who had been attacked at Leo’s bar, the ensuing rage pushed Clive to incite a violent attack against his unwilling nemesis, enlisting the men to hang Leo from a lamppost outside his home. It’s a bold statement on the rise in hate crimes around the world and the dangers of ignoring how the internet has contributed to a societal regression in the acceptance of queer people — all under the guise of an unjustified fight against pedophilia. “It exists for the final death knell of the whole thing, there’s no other way to get that point across,” creator Russell T Davies told TheWrap. “I was almost hoping there’d be a backlash. For people to say, ‘No, society’s better than this, and there’s a lot more hope than this.’ And I’m very afraid to tell you that an awful lot of people told me this is exactly how they feel.” Below, the writer behind shows like “Queer as Folk,” “It’s a Sin” and “Years and Years” broke down the British drama’s brutal finale and what he hopes audiences take away from his latest project. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Alan Cumming and David Morrissey in “Tip Toe.” (ITV) TheWrap: First of all, thank you for making this show. It encapsulates the societal regression we’re facing in the most heartbreaking and human way I’ve seen yet. Russell T Davies: I hope so. When you transmit something like this, you’ve had to hold your breath [wondering]: Is this going to work? We were delighted in the UK by the huge reaction, great viewing figures. But one of the sad things was the amount of people agreeing with me. I was almost kind of hoping there’d be a backlash. People saying, “No, society’s better than this, and there’s a lot more hope than this.” And I’m very afraid to tell you that an awful lot of people have queued up to say this is exactly how I feel. I can’t believe it. The absolutely distressing thing has been the amount of trans people or parents of trans people who’ve queued up to tell me how scared they are of the world. Parents of trans kids saying, “She’s going away to university now, and I’m so scared for her. She’s scared, and she’s just sitting in her room and not going out and not meeting people. What kind of world have we brought her into?” It’s terrifying. You’ve said you thought the show would never air in America. What stands out to you the most about finding distribution for “Tip Toe” over here? Well, it’s been the size of Europe and the U.S. Genuinely, it’s a very unusual move in that, as you know, the streamers rule the world these days, which is wonderful. I will happily take all that streaming money … but actually, for this show, my producer Nicola Shindler and I got together, and we’ve been working together since we made “Queer as Folk” in 1999. We’ve made 14 shows together. Now, we love each other. We’re a proper work couple, and we both push each other to work harder and harder and harder. We decided that the multi-million-pound budgets were in danger of taking over, and we wanted to make something purely with British money … which gave us the freedom to make it all the more British. We didn’t have any co-production partners. No one asking us to explain a cultural reference or to take out a cultural reference. And what you discover, which we’ve always known but you need reminding of, is that the more specific you make something, the more popular it is abroad. It’s then been a great delight for the production company to recoup its costs by selling it abroad. We went to the market to sell this abroad, and we were amazed by the interest from France, Germany, Norway, Spain and all the other countries it’s been sold to. And then for Starz to come in like this — and not just purchase it, but properly promote it. I’m properly proud of it, and I’ve pushed it. I’ve done a million interviews. The stars have done a million interviews, and we really, really respect that. We’re very, very grateful. I’ve got to say, it’s been a lovely working relationship, and I’ve loved it. And a great surprise, because the show is openly critical of the American government. It’s critical of just about every government across the world. And certainly critical of those tech [parent companies] from Silicon Valley who are driving the human race into the pit. It’s like we’re living in a science fiction world where there are literally specified villas doing terrible things to the human race. It sounds like part of a film, and yet here they are in front of us presenting their little wares daily. You know, I can say all that, yes. So, no trouble to libel someone, but yeah. So, to have this program received is both thrilling … it struck a chord. Alan Cumming and David Morrissey in “Tip Toe.” (Starz) The finale takes us through the harrowing day leading up to Leo’s murder, or his “execution” as Clive put it. This is the inevitable fate we were introduced to from the very beginning of the series. How was it to bring this moment to life during production of this tragic episode? It was very, very tough and yet very, very exhilarating, because it’s the point of the whole show. And again, on a very limited budget — and that’s actually a very expensive thing to do. There’s behind-the-scenes footage of a huge crane in the street pulling Alan up, obviously very safely on a harness. Sealing off the street was very complicated because on one side of that street was quite a major road. You had to seal it because otherwise you’d cause an accident. Someone could have been driving along and seen a man being hanged. So, we genuinely had to take care of the traffic. And on the other end of the street, that’s the path home for the local primary school. So at half past three every day, we had to stop. We had gone through normal scenes, normal scenes of men shouting in the street, but we couldn’t do the hanging until half past three in case kids stopped and saw it. Add to that the fact that the press found out we were there, because of course Alan Cumming is being hanged in that scene, and they were flying drones over the street. The press can now legally fly drones over the street. You’re not allowed to stop them. At least in Britain, that’s the case. So that was a nightmare. Fortunately, they got bored and went home just before the hanging. So we were telling them, “What hanging? We don’t know what you’re on about.” There was an amazing moment when we first hauled the stuntman up by his neck. We had rehearsed things a million times, so everyone was spread out across the street. Everyone was chatting while the rope people dealt with the rope. Wardrobe over there, costumer over there and the actors over here. Everyone’s having a coffee; they chat and laugh, and then the body got winched up, and a terrible silence fell over the whole street. It was amazing. You could not look away from what was happening in front of you, and that was the moment I realized, “Oh my gosh, this is really going to be powerful.” Because this is a British street in daylight in Manchester today, and there’s a hanging. And it really came home to all of us. It was an incredible moment. Although it was terrible, I was also very glad I was there. As the horror continued and the football lads ran away, the show shared updates on their fates, including prison sentences of just a few years, with life sentences for the worst of them and for Clive. What do you hope people take away from Leo and everyone else’s fates after that day? It exists for the final death knell of the whole thing. There’s no other way to get that point across, and in six months’ time, Leo is described online as a convicted pedophile. That’s exactly how the internet works. That is exactly what would happen to him. In fact, I think the only thing that’s wrong with that is that it takes months. I think within that day, he would be condemned as a convicted pedophile online. And there’s no way of erasing those lies unless you’re very, very rich. Some people have happy endings. It’s balanced with Saul. Saul is a lovely, sex-positive character, beautifully portrayed by Joe Evans all the way through. He gets a happy ending. It’s a really tough ending for George (Jackson Connor). Out of all of them, you think, “Oh, George is the young gay son, he’ll survive this and he’ll come out of it fine and have a great gay life.” And he doesn’t. The interesting thing is to watch him in Episode 4, where he goes to a party for the first time and instantly drinks too much, smokes too much and takes drugs. That’s the kind of person he is. And look, we can all have fun doing that, but it’s kind of in his heart, in his soul. And suddenly you’re faced with this life of drug-related offenses. And I don’t intend it to be a result of what happened with his father — though I’m quite sure that doesn’t help — but I think that was in his soul right from the start. All the trigger warnings are there. And what happened to Stephanie (Elizabeth Berrington)? She just traveled the world. She just couldn’t stay. Took a little time and traveled around because, of course, she couldn’t stay. It was a line in the script. The script went a line further. She’s always trying to escape that door. But then Zee (Iz Hezketh) becomes a teacher. She chooses a nice name. I love her becoming a teacher. I think that’s gorgeous. Iz Hesketh in “Tip Toe.” (Starz) Clive went back and forth on his acceptance of Leo and the people at the bar throughout the show, but ultimately decided to commit this terrible crime. What drives him to such an extreme display of violence against his neighbor? It’s his humiliation in front of the younger men. The moments I love in that final episode, where he’s so desperate to please that room full of young men, he’s kind of a ball to them. He’s so determined to impress them and to be one of them, but to also be in charge of them, and to be a father to them all, and yet to be 18 himself. He’s hopelessly, hopelessly showcasing machismo and testosterone, what it is to be a father and what it is to be a man in those moments. So the really genuine moments of him looking around with fear at that room, and then he’s unexpectedly funny to make them laugh. That’s one of the most horrible things he can do: get the room laughing in his favor. And then it just gets worse now. There’s video evidence of him helping a drag queen in the bar fight. The final thing that triggers him is that Lottie says to him, “You know, we always knew you played away from home, but we didn’t even go that far.” Which isn’t the trans element. That’s the entire lie he made up about having an affair to make himself sound more interesting. That’s the one lie he never escaped because he made that up himself, and he could never backtrack from that lie. He stuck with it. And his wife has believed it for months now. He made it up himself just to make himself look more interesting. That’s actually the ultimate trigger. It looks like the drag queen is pushing Clive into his ultimate fury. But if you study it, it’s his own lies. Poor Clive, you feel infinitely sorry for him, even though he’s a monster in those moments. That’s a measure of David Morrissey’s performance. David Morrissey in “Tip Toe.” (Starz) The show doesn’t end with the hanging, but flashes back two years to Leo reflecting that maybe it was a mistake for queer people to fight for visibility, because now it’s made them an easier target for those who want to hurt them. Then he predicts that something terrible is going to happen. Why end things there? Remember, you’ve been with the body since Scene 1 of Episode 1, so in a way, you expect a bit more at the end. It’s quite unusual because normally the cards saying what happened to everyone would come last. I thought it was just a nice moment of transgression, really, of going a bit further. You want to see Leo again. You want to remember him as he was. Those very last lines, where he says, “I think something big is going to happen,” were actually said to me by a drag queen on Canal Street. I was judging a drag contest at the pub that we ended up filming in for “Spit and Polish.” I was talking to all the queens, and I described the show and the state of tension we’re living in now, and one of those drag queens said, “I think something bad is going to happen.” And that’s the line. What do you want people to take away from this haunting and reflective ending? Well, that’s hard, isn’t it? Because it’s not up to me. Like I’ve said, I’m delighted and yet chilled that a lot of people agreed with it. I hope it will have opened people’s eyes. Some people disagree with that. I’ve had people sitting there listing things, saying we’ve got gay marriage, we’ve got gay adoption, we’ve got equal ages of consent. Things are so much better than they were. And you sit there going, “That’s not the point. This hasn’t finished. This is talking about what’s coming next, and I think this is very visibly coming next. Isn’t it now the statistics? The rising hate crimes, the rising suicides. It’s literally creeping up into the edges of our lives.” And now I’ve got evidence. People contacting me or DMing me or talking to the channel, saying they were aware of this and now they are and they believe it and that’s great. A worldwide movement needs to happen to separate us from this online voice. There’s no sign of that happening, and I think it’s almost too late and will take us all into the grave. Alan Cumming and Elizabeth Berrington in “Tip Toe.” (Starz) You predicted a grimmer but pretty accurate version of the future with your show “Years and Years” back in 2019. You had the excellent “It’s a Sin” too, and now “Tip Toe” makes just as powerful of a statement about our time in a more grounded and devastating story. What drives you to exploring these topics in your work? I’m lucky that I can get these things on air. I think they should be said. I kind of stare open-mouthed at dramas that don’t get angry about the state of the world, but I think someone’s going to do it. I’m leading on this front. I’m not saying we’re changing the world, but we did get great viewing figures for this, far beyond what we expected. We were living in fear of this being a little niche, angry northern queer show. It had all that set against it. What we did have were two great big stars. That was always our great weapon. It’s done so well on Starz. It’s done well in Europe as well. So maybe you can get these things heard. Maybe it will get someone thinking. I’m not in charge of that, but you’ve got to hope at the end. That’s all we can do. “Tip Toe” is streaming now on Starz.