{"id":11164,"date":"2022-02-14T08:00:15","date_gmt":"2022-02-14T07:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1583909"},"modified":"2022-02-14T08:00:15","modified_gmt":"2022-02-14T07:00:15","slug":"russell-t-davies-if-id-got-its-a-sin-wrong-that-would-have-been-an-awful-thing","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/russell-t-davies-if-id-got-its-a-sin-wrong-that-would-have-been-an-awful-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"Russell T Davies: \u2018If I\u2019d got It\u2019s A Sin wrong, that would have been an awful thing\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Morgan Jeffery\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Monday, 14 February 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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\u201cIt\u2019s a funny old business, this,\u201d says Russell T Davies, who tops this year\u2019s RadioTimes.com<\/strong>\u2018s TV 100 list<\/a>, a rundown of the most exciting, influential names working in television today compiled by figureheads of the creative industries. \u201cChristmas 2017, I got a phone call\u2026 Years and Years had been turned down, and then I got a phone call saying It\u2019s A Sin had been turned down. It was a real feeling of \u2018Oh, this is the downward slope\u2019 \u2013 look at my downward slope now! But genuinely, it was Christmas \u2013 the irony of it! I was like the Little Match Girl, there was probably a jaunty carol playing in the background, with me going, \u2018Oh my God, I\u2019m properly out of work.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just goes to show that you can be in this job as long as you like, it\u2019s still a freelance job. People always say to me \u2018Oh, you must get everything made!\u2019 \u2013 oh no, you don\u2019t!\u201d<\/p>\n

Davies\u2019 It\u2019s A Sin \u2013 depicting the lives of young gay men, their friends and their families throughout the HIV\/AIDS crisis of the 1980s \u2013 was rejected by both the BBC and ITV before Channel 4 finally green-lit a five-part series. \u201cIt had been looming in my head for years, almost with a sense of dread,\u201d he admits. \u201cBecause if I got it wrong, I would have gone to the grave mortified. It doesn\u2019t matter if I get Doctor Who<\/a> wrong. It doesn\u2019t matter if I get Years and Years wrong. it doesn\u2019t matter if I get Jeremy Thorpe wrong. Who cares? Move on, next drama. If I\u2019d got this wrong \u2013 and by wrong I mean if I\u2019d upset people, or just struck the wrong tone, or let down the people we\u2019d lost \u2013 that would have been an awful thing. It\u2019s very unusual to approach a project with that heaviness, that sense of dread.\u201d<\/p>\n

Launched in January 2021, the series won widespread critical acclaim \u2013 including being named RadioTimes.com<\/strong>\u2018s no.1 TV show of 2021<\/a> \u2013 and broke records for Channel 4, with the first episode becoming its most-watched drama launch ever. Davies was \u201ccompletely blindsided\u201d by the success, having approached transmission \u201choping for an audience, hoping that anyone would watch it at all\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe night before transmission,\u00a0Alex<\/span>\u00a0Mahon<\/span>\u00a0\u2013 who\u2019s the head of Channel 4 \u2013 sent me a lovely e-mail saying, \u2018It doesn\u2019t matter how many viewers we get tomorrow, we\u2019re really proud of it,\u2019 which was like a kiss of death. I thought, \u2018Oh my God, they\u2019re actually expecting zero viewers, right at the very top.\u2019 so the fact that those numbers were so high was thrilling.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, you only do these things for viewers, you\u2019re just lying if you say you don\u2019t. You do them so that millions of people will come and watch. I mean Cucumber [Davies\u2019 2015 Channel 4 drama exploring 21st century gay life] was getting audiences of about 1 million. Some episodes got less. So I was kind of resigned to that in my head.\u201d<\/p>

Released in its entirety on All 4, It\u2019s A Sin also became the most binge-watched show to ever stream on the platform after receiving 18.9 million views. Though there\u2019d been \u201cdoubts\u201d about whether all five episodes should be released as a box-set, Davies himself was excited by the idea, having never launched one of his shows in this manner. \u201cI\u2019m watching The Tourist<\/a> at the moment and I\u2019m pacing that out weekly because I like the cliffhangers, I like the waiting. But It\u2019s A Sin is not a thriller, there are no cliffhangers, it\u2019s just the story of life, so actually it works very well as a four-and-a-half hour movie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Davies had originally pitched the series as eight episodes, with Channel 4 eventually commissioning five. \u201cI love the final form,\u201d he says. \u201cBut actually, yes, it would have been wonderful if it had been eight episodes. There are things not in there. There\u2019s no episodes with no deaths, for example. If you\u2019d done eight episodes, around about episode five or six, there would have been important moments saying that, actually, life goes on and the problems of HIV and AIDS are not only the problems of death \u2013 living with it is a problem. I think it\u2019s a shame that there\u2019s no episode that does that.\u201d<\/p>\n

A longer run would also have meant more scenes featuring Andria Doherty as Eileen, mother to Colin (Callum Scott Howells), as she embraced activism following her son\u2019s death, as well as a scene revealing that Juan Pablo (Tatsu Carvalho), who it\u2019s assumed dies off-screen in the final series, was still alive following the passing of his partner Henry (Neil Patrick Harris). \u201cBut you sound like a pretty rubbish writer if you sit here complaining about the things you didn\u2019t get to write when people would die to have five hours on Channel Four,\u201d says Davies. \u201cSo I\u2019m very grateful for what I got.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Channel 4<\/i> <\/span>\n<\/div>\n

Whatever shape It\u2019s A Sin ended up taking, Davies \u201calways knew\u201d how it would end, with Jill (Lydia West) visiting hospital to support a lonely man dying from AIDS, before flashing back to show Ritchie (Olly Alexander) and his friends enjoying life together, before the pandemic hit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t exactly sure what would happen in the story, but I knew that whatever happened, the story would end with her going back onto a ward to sit with a stranger, and we\u2019d flash back to see that gang at their happiest and their funniest, just laughing on a park bench like you do when you\u2019re young. Literally the moment I sat at my desk to type page one, scene one, episode one, I knew that\u2019s where it was heading. It\u2019s the getting there that\u2019s hard work!\u201d<\/p>\n

The impact of It\u2019s A Sin extended beyond just record-breaking viewing figures, with a commemorative t-shirt featuring the slogan \u201cLa!\u201d \u2013 a catchphrase repeated by the show\u2019s young characters \u2013 raising half a million pounds for HIV and sexual health charity the Terrence Higgins Trust, something Davies calls \u201castonishing\u201d. \u201cI find that amazing,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019d never predicted any of that at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

He believes the show ended up forming part of a \u201cmovement\u201d that is helping to destigmatize living with HIV and AIDS \u2013 as the episodes aired, he heard stories of families who\u2019d previously insisted a son or brother or uncle or father had died of cancer or of pneumonia now finally telling the truth about their diagnosis. \u201cI think it\u2019s one of the things that\u2019s changing \u2013 not just thanks to It\u2019s A Sin, but thanks to all the work that the charities and the activists do, is persuading people to stop referring to an AIDS death as a terrible, shameful thing, but simply as a cause of death, with no guilt, no shame, and no stigma attached. To be part of that was extraordinary.\u201d<\/p>