Begin Again with Davina McCall - Russell T Davies: The Private Battles I Fought While Creating My Biggest Shows

Episode Date: October 8, 2026

How do you find love again after losing the person you wanted to spend the rest of your life with? In this deeply moving episode of Begin Again, legendary British television writer Russell T Davies joins Davina McCall to reflect on his extraordinary life creating some of Britain’s most groundbreaking television, from Doctor Who and Queer as Folk to It’s a Sin and Years and Years. Russell opens up about growing up gay in Swansea, how he found belonging through youth theatre, and how friendship, identity and the AIDS crisis shaped his writing.  We also hear the story of his 20-year relationship with his late husband Andrew and his eight-year battle with brain cancer. This is a beautiful conversation about grief, continuing bonds with those we’ve lost, and unexpectedly finding love again without leaving the love that came before behind. 🌟Like, comment and subscribe for more honest conversations about purpose, resilience, love, loss and beginning again. Follow us here: 📸www.instagram.com/beginagain  🎥https://www.tiktok.com/@beginagainpod  ✨Sign up for the Begin Again newsletter for behind-the-scenes access, recommendations and much more: https://linkly.link/2g2xm  We'd love you to share your Get Busy Living stories with us at https://getbusyliving.beginagainshow.com/ Follow Russell T Davies here: https://www.instagram.com/russelltdavies63  The Queerest of Folk by Russell T Davies is out on 8th October, hardback, £25 https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-queerest-of-folk-a-life-in-television-russell-t-davies/a290496f474a1f8c (00:00) Intro (01:41) Russell And Davina's Friendship (03:35) When His Mother Was Sectioned (07:36) Russell's New Book 'The Queerest of Folk' (08:35) Being A Young Doctor Who Fan (11:00) On Realising He Was Gay (14:25) The Inspiration Behind 'It's a Sin' (17:31) A Letter For Russell (19:58) Monzo GBL Ad (21:35) On Making 'It's a Sin' (28:17) How 'Queer as Folk' Came To Be (35:59) Monzo 90 Days Ad (37:04) Making 'Tip Toe' with Alan Cumming and David Morrissey (44:01) A Letter From Kate Bush (45:57) On Making 'Years and Years' (48:30) Meeting His Husband (50:46) After His Husband's Cancer Diagnosis (59:16) His Husband's Death (01:04:42) On Finding Love Again (01:07:58) Writing Doctor Who (01:11:52) His Writing Process Download Monzo. Monzo Current Accounts are for 16+ and UK residents. Ts&Cs Apply. Integrated accounting with Pro and Team business plans start from £9 a month. Only for UK sole traders or limited company directors. Ts&Cs apply. Join the 'Say Yes Club' and hear more about our events here - https://events.beginagainshow.com/  Sync ID: MB01FISPPUMJOWC Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Guys, take a look at these numbers. What year is it? 2026. Oh, great. I've come from panic begin again. I've got to interview Russell T. Davis. On this day, at this time. Great. Okay. All right.

All right. Yeah, so I'm saying, yeah. What about this boy? I think, review this. So I am like beside myself today. I know I am beside myself most days, but today I really, really am. I really really am because I am talking to Russell T. Davis. Dr. Who, that is awesome.

Thank you for being as excited as me. Yes! He's changed the world. This way, this way. Yes! Oh my god. Hello. No, I can't handle it. I almost like that. He called me when I was in hospital after my brain tumour operation.

It was difficult for even good friends of mine to do that because nobody quite knew what to say, but he was. He did. This man is a saint. You're a very special man. Hi, yeah. Hi. God. I mean, right, Russell, I'm coming over. Okay, in for that. Just one more. Okay, lots of hugs. I've got a feel in the camera, but I'm not the last. I'm looking straight up my jacksie.

That's fine. Viewing figures, soaring. Multiple, multiple hints. Multiple, multiple. I've said this a lot, and I know that I talked about this when we greeted. Grote. Groot. We groat outside. I've always loved you as a person and what you stood for.

And obviously, you can see who you are from everything you write without even ever reading an interview about you, which is what I love about you. Well, thank you. And we've talked about this and I don't need to cover it too much, but you did reach out to me when I wasn't well. Yes. And it meant the world to me. Well, thank you.

And thank you. I think, I mean, you've talked about this and you have said how, and I'd hate to sound like a saint because there's plenty of times in my life. and they didn't. I look back in my life and I think, God, I had friends who died when I was young. Did I stay in touch with their parents? No, I didn't. And people who have awful, did I write that letter? No, I didn't. So it's something you learn over the years that if someone is in a terrible state or ill or need something, get in touch. And then get in touch again. That's the thing, I think. The big thing for me was when you called me after I'd had breast cancer and you said, I'm sending you a text because this is normally when people stop texting.

Yes, yeah. And it was. Yes. I was like, who knows that? You do. And I'd like to talk to you a bit about Andrew later. Absolutely, my lovely husband, bless him. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I feel like everything that you've done is in a sense reparation. You were just talking about friends of mine died and I didn't reach out. But like It's a Sin was kind of a way of explaining how mad that time was. And I want to talk to you about that as well. But first, you. coming from Wales, Swansea. Yep. And growing up in Wales with your mum, your dad, your two sisters.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I quickly want, I read in your notes that your mum was sectioned on the day you were born. She was. So can you just talk me through that? Why? It was extraordinary. They gave her too much morphine. She was, I was her third caesarian.

And in those days, you were sterilized after your third cesare. No choice. That just happened. You could not have a fourth caesarion. So they did that. and gave her too much morphine. But they wouldn't admit they gave her too much morphine. This is 1963 where no doctor was going to admit a mistake ever.

So in her high, I wonder what drugs were in my system. And in her high, she went off into a parallel universe. She was floating in space where this giant godlike faces appeared. And they said to her, we're sending you back to the world, to the earth. But if anyone ever speaks to you, you'll be trapped in a world in which your firstborn daughter is dead. So she wakes up a bed and her nurse says to her, how are you, Mrs. Davis? And she attacks her. She attacks the nurse and pulls down curtains. I go, let me out of this world. I'm in the wrong world. I'm in the wrong world. It's this science fiction dream, isn't it? So she got sectioned. So my father arrived at the hospital. I'm sorry, she's been sectioned. And they said it's a nervous breakdown because of the cesarean because of the sterilisation. She can't cope. So there was I, I'm a little cot. And there was she locked up on a high, on a massive, massive high. I'm blessed my father. He's very clever. He's a very clever.

a man, my father. He just said she's not the sort of person to have a nervous breakdown. That's not what's happened. God, how lovely of him. And he went and researched the drug. He found someone he taught who worked in pediatrics or something and said, look at these symptoms. What is this? And someone else said, oh, that looks like morphine. But in those days, in 1963, you did not get one doctor to prove another doctor wrong. So three days this took. Wow. And she was there and eventually they kind of released her and released her. I said, all right, you're fine, go back. And this is the best bit. So I've been like lying in my little cot all alone And so they release her from that ward

Put her back onto the maternity ward Hand me over and say here he is It's a boy, congratulations Mrs Davis But we should tell you he's got a club foot I have not got a club foot I have not got a club foot have I No, I'm six for six I've not got a club foot

And for the next three years I went to baby physio Baby Three years until it turned out around and went, actually, he hasn't got a club foot. But I don't even look like I've got a club foot. There's nothing odd about my, forgive me, club foot people. But I'm not being rude.

But you don't look like you're going to club foot. No, my foot is completely normal. How does that? What a birth. What a birth. But also. I'm just dramatic. Now.

That is the truth. It's just got to be a show. Dramatic entrance. Exactly. I think the other interesting thing is how much we learn about how important that those first moments are with your mother. Well, amazing. And you missed three days. And actually, and she never told me that until I was 27 years old.

That was then like, we don't keep secrets specifically in our family, but it was horrible to her. I kind of make a big story out of it because I think it's actually quite exciting. It was what a trauma to her. And it was when her mother died, my lovely grandmother, Violet, and I came home and she got a bit drunk in the kitchen and told me that story. It was like, wow. I thought, how have you kept that quiet for all these years? Amazing.

Horrible trauma. Can you imagine? Wow. Talking there about your dad, finding. someone he'd taught that was a paediatrician. Yes. Your dad sounds pretty amazing. Yeah, blessed, big rugby man.

What an amazing thing to do. Yeah, yes, very strong and very clever man. And like, I keep on saying, but in 1963, you did not turn around and doubt the hospital. You did not tell them they were wrong. You did not go against the advice you were being given. So that's extraordinary. For him to do that then was really something. Bless him.

And he must have really loved your mum. Oh, completely. To stand up for her. Completely. How many years were they married? 50 years, amazing. Yes, yeah. I quickly want to touch on.

This is just a proof, isn't it? They wouldn't let me call it Vanity Project. The queerest of folk, believe me. I was at Manchester Pride and I'm not the queerest of folk. This book is a brilliant, it's a brilliant kind of, it's stories, isn't it, from your life? Yes, and it's really about, most of it's about my job. It's about working in television. And then you see the rest of my life through that

Because that's how it happens, isn't it? You know that the rest of the life happens in conjunction with the television stuff. They're not separate. And it's kind of lessons and ideas and thoughts. It's quite thought provoking. Is it? Yes, I think I feel like it's, it helps a conversation start. You'd read this book.

And then each chapter or a couple of chapters, you'd go out for dinner and you go, so I've been reading Russell Teavis's book. And he's been talking about years and years. And it's very interesting because, you know what you mean? Yeah, yeah, good. That's what I wanted, yeah. I love this idea of you starting to draw comic strips.

Yes. How old were you then? Oh, but as soon as I could pick up a pencil. Really? And I used to copy or I should have Peanuts comic strip, Charlie Brown Comics Trips, who is... I mean, my favourite. The master. Yeah, he actually master of cartoon.

Do you know, he invented seeing grass at horizon level. You know, at the bottom of a panel, he drew a line of grass like that. He invented that. He's just, I just, I've got a signed print by Charles M. Schultz at home is my most valued possession. But what was the time when you realised actually I can write and I want to write? What age were you? I never thought you could because I wasn't from a family that did. Even though it was a family of teachers. There wasn't any television in my background. There was nothing there. So I had no structure. And I used to love Doctor Who. I loved watching Dr. Hoos.

So I knew the name of the writers. And I used to watch soap operas. So I was always tuned in to the names of the writers. And it said storyline and story associate and things like that on crossroads. You were interested. I was interested. My mind was heading there. But I almost never thought it was even possible because you just couldn't see it. And again, this is the 70s now. Now, there's a million BTS programs. You can see interviews of everyone. You can see the writer's rooms. We just didn't see behind the scene stuff for that. There was one book written called The Making of Doctor Who, which broke down Doctor Who into scripts and script editors and producers and the director direct and the actors learned the lines. It actually broke it down and explained the whole thing. It was a very influential book on a whole generation of Doctor Who fans because you actually saw how things were made. So that gave me an insight. And then so I was about it. It was just impossible. It was literally impossible.

It was like the gods of Mount Olympus were the writers, just, you know, other people. Other people. Other people. Other people. Yeah, someone else does that. Exactly. They're too lofty by far. Although it's funny.

I actually say this in the book that you can tell two stories of many versions of your life story. And in one version, I'm completely wide-eyed. and innocent and going, oh, I'll never do that. On the other hand, I went and bought an electric typewriter, an electric typewriter. Did you remember them? Fancy pan. You know, the first step towards a word processor. And I did start bashing her scripts on there.

So it's hard to realize how ambitious you were. I would never call myself ambitious. And yet I obviously am. It's obviously burning away in me because I was typing away and starting to put things together. I want to talk to you about school actually in particular because I am so grateful to you for talking about how difficult it is when you don't fit the norm at school and how important that is for anybody that feels that they don't read about that somewhere or see some and especially someone who has gone on to achieve such greatness because sometimes you can feel so lonely. Yeah, it's funny because I think probably anyone. who was in school, and we would say,

what do you want about? You had a great time. But actually... Not how you felt. Well, and there was a massive school, 2,300 pupils. Wow.

Man, they were proud of those big numbers there. Big, comprehensive, big, in the 70s, they were the thing. And huge. And actually, do you know what? I'm very tall.

I think I survived that by being varied. I wasn't really bullied. And I was lippy. I was cheeky. I was a bit gobby. I could give you back a little bit. But really,

I just kind of kept quiet. And of course, there's no way in a billion, billion years, I would have mentioned being gay, as you're realising you're gay. When did you know? But it just built up.

I mean, I think I always knew, in a way, the very first people I ever fancied were men, and there was never any other thought there. Were there any role models? Well, no, exactly. Well, weirdly, there were. I was very lucky, not straight away, and I think what's interesting is

that the moment you start to realize who you are, you simultaneously learn to keep it quiet. That's the most damaging thing in the world. And that's going now. God, I just got an email off a friend of mine who I waved out in the crowd of pride yesterday. He said, oh, I was there in my kids. And he said, I was there with my 12-year-old. He came out two years ago. You went, what?

When he was 10? And I still find that amazing and new. And I wanted to know all about it. It's amazing. How happy the dad was talking about that. I mean, impossible by then. That didn't exist. The language didn't exist.

The language barely existed if you were 18, 20, 21. But I did the most marvel. I was never and also I should say I was good at school I was clever so I could do it so and once and that makes it all a lot easier so I could kind of coast in a way

through it and but what I did discover was a youth theatre which was the most glorious thing at the Westmoreham youth theatre in a youth theatre I mean How old were you when you joined? I was 11th when I joined it very very young and again not a gay space no one ever said the word gay and yet it attract gay people. And I talked about role models. The role models I had there were there were older boys who were about 16, 17, camp as hell. Camp as Christmas, many of them went on to become

drag queens. One of them was a drag queen called Pinky in Brighton for many, many years. And he became a very famous drag queen in Brighton. He died a couple of years ago. He was so wonderful. And that was my role model. They weren't in drag then. They were just camp. And making Camph Welsh jokes, being completely free. Even then they didn't say they were gay. but it was who they were. And just, so that was my role models. Really camp funny 17-year-olds being gay as gay, except codedly gay, but nonetheless gay.

And just what I love those boys to this day. Just thing. So I was, so I was automatically kind of a head in a way of if you haven't been in that youth theatre. I was in a gay space with other gay people. And even though we had long way to go in terms of coming out, what a glorious place. And I love, and that's also, it's, wound into my soul that you theatre is.

I met my friend Jill Nalda, who was the inspiration for It's a Sin. Yes. And a lot of my friends there are still my friends. Yes, we love Jill. What an amazing woman. Could you just tell us who she was? Jill was my friend. She's a year older than me.

So when I think we met, she was 15, I was 14, got on instantly. She was friend to the gays. I mean, she knew I was gay before anyone did. And so when she went to become an actor, so she went. But she went to Central, but she went off to London. ahead of us. So actually, when I went to Oxford, I'd spend a lot of weekends just going to London to see her. To be with Jill and they'd have parties and then they more moved into a flat. They called the Pink Palace, I went to Pals, which became the It's a Sin Pink Palace. I ended up

writing this many years later. And so she lived this lovely, funny life. But then, of course, we're talking about when I went to university, that's in 1981. So 82, you're talking about the arrival of the HIV virus in Great Britain. And as she was left drama college and became an actor, she out went straight into the chorus of Les Mis and stuff like that. And that's where the illnesses were first seen. That's when boys started dropping out of the chorus. Michael Ball talks about this. He had friends who just vanished.

Or they'd get a cold that would never leave and they'd go home and then they'd die. And in many ways, the West End were amongst the first to notice what was going on. Or they were the first to actually speak out about what was going on and started to raise money and raise funds and started to protest and have bent pushes. and things like that. When it's a sin came out, a journalist friend of mine went and looked up his clippings and he realized he'd been on a bed push with Jill Nalda in 1991, pushing a bed through Trafalgar Square. So she was one of the first to become an activist, but a very modest activist. That's why her name's not in the history books, really.

She wasn't, she didn't found a society. She didn't make the speeches. She just turned up and pushed the beds and did the marathons and did the walks and shook a bucket and raised money. And it's so lovely now that she's got, she's got. an OBE now because she was finally recognised for doing what she's done on the front line all those years. She was like a quiet Princess Diana. She's stigmatising and showing people. Yes, yes, yes.

And lost so many people. I mean, she was right in the heart. I lost people incomparable to what Jill. That's why when I went to write, it's a sin. I went to her because she was in the middle of the inferno. I had my losses. I knew people. She was there burning in the volcano of those terrible events.

and knew and saw everything. So I mined her for a thousand stories. And we'd talk to each other for years. And yet it took me that long to kind of think, God, she's the source. She's the well sprint of everything I want to write about. She's the mother load. And so we sat down, I said we sat down for many lunches

and I sat there saying, talk to me like you've never talked to me before. Tell me about Juan Pablo. Tell me about, tell me about Dursley, tell me about this, tell me about that. And all her stories came tumbling out. She just ended up becoming. It's a sin, bless her. So she was my mate, way back then, 14, 15 years old. Bless her.

Thank you, Jill. You'd love her. Actually, I've got something for you. Money? Oh, what's that? Is that Jill's handwriting? What's that? What's you doing, Vina?

You read it to us, please. What is this? Is I read this out? Yes, please. Uh-huh, dear Russ Russell. Well, is this Jill? It is. Yeah.

Oh, my God. I do the answer. Well, I know you're being interviewed. so I'm giving in on the action. Honestly, time races by it does, doesn't it? I remember with great joy the time we actually became really good friends. The summer of the parties,

which, if it were Gavin and Stacey, would be the fishing trip that no one mentions. We had a party that lasted for four weeks. Four weeks. In Swansea, we went from house to house to house. In the week two, I dyed my hair blonde. In week three, oh my God. Oh, my God.

Oh, my God. What a laugh we had. and it's been a laugh and a joy ever since. Oh, darling. Now, darling, I've also filled with huge admiration for you, not only for your fabulous writing and love of the camp. Oh, but your continual fight for what you believe in. Camp and fearless, my friend.

How lucky I am. I love you. I love you. What a woman. What a lovely thing for you to do? Of course. Oh, my God. She's exceptional, isn't she?

Yeah, she is. And now, I mean, her life is mad. She's like, um, um, she's been touring the world now with Les Miserables and Matt Lucas. She's still that wench in the best. in the bank, and she's still in the washerwoman. She's never the lead. She's never Madame Tidalier. She's always just in the corner. She loves it. Yeah, she's in the thick of it, right? She's like, right.

She can sing and she's her the most wonderful. Wonderful fam. She had the loveliest mum and dad as well, her lovely brother as well. Gorgeous people, yeah. Oh, I'll treasure that. Thank you. It's funny. She was so happy to be asked. Let's take your friend's life and turn it into a great drama. To the extent that there's a character called Jill in it, I couldn't change her name. No. I tried it. I think I tried a draft, calling you, Alison, I just went, it's Jill, it's Jill.

Did she love that? I think, yes, she did. I think it was odd for her. And I think when I say the spotlight shone on her, she never wanted that spotlight. But nonetheless, all her friends are so delighted for her. And then we cast her in it as Jill's mother. So she's in it.

And that was a nice thing to do. Then she felt. Oh, I've got to go back and watch it again. Yeah, that's her. That's Jill. In she comes. Oh, God. How pretty in.

Yeah, yeah. In she comes. So she's part of the team. She met Lydia West who plays Jill. Wow. Yeah, so it was a nice... Yeah, yeah, yeah. So she was part of the whole thing.

Monzo sponsoring begin again to help us win back some time so we can do more of what we love. I wanted to know what that thing was for you. So let's have a look and see who we've got. Yvonne says she spent the last 20 years ticking things off her bucket list. And it's had such a positive impact on her life. What's next, Yvonne? I am 45 and I really feel like when she's at a point now in my life

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It would be absolutely amazing. And I love meditating. It is so life-changing. It doesn't even matter if it works out or it doesn't work out. You had a go. And the feeling of having a go at something, you're going to feel really proud about yourself and you're going to want to try something else. So let's do this.

Let's say yes more. In fact, I'm going to make it happen right now. I'm calling it the Say Yes Club. We're going to take one thing we've always wanted to do and we are actually going to do it. So I'm going to put a link in the description for you to come and join us because that's exactly the thing that Monzo is here to help with. They put our money to work in the background. sorted, saved, sent where it needs to go

so our energy is free to say yes to more things in life. Monzo Current accounts are for UK residents, age 16 plus T's and C's Apply. I mean, that I think for anybody our age is an amazing drama and a reminder of what life was like then and it was such a brilliant portrayal of it. How hard was it? was it? Because I remember that feeling of everybody going, what is this? What does it mean? Yes. Who's safe? Is anybody safe? Like, what do we have to do? And the rumours and the

rumours and everything. Yes, the nonsense that was said. Yeah, yeah. And portraying, because obviously you can live with HIV now, but it is still around. Yes. So how hard was it to get that pitch right where you're not frightening people about having sex? Yes, that was hard. That was part, that was the balancing act of episode one. And no one wanted to make it. It got turned down by everyone. Yeah, so tell me about that. Eight was turned down by Channel 4.

Dan Ford did edit and making it. But at one point, someone of that channel was heard to say, if I hear one more word about that miserable age drama, which is weird. Because you look at episode 1, it's not miserable. It's not at all. It's amazing what people bring to it. Yeah.

They bring, and also, they bring, that was a person of a certain age who'd live through that crisis. So maybe they are bringing horror and loss and funerals and sadness to it. So they read that into it. You literally said they're going, my first episode is joyous and funny and comic. Anyway, never mind. And then the BBC had a marvellous meeting at the BBC

where an executive walked in and you could tell it wasn't going well because they sat down and went, Do you know Elton John? No, no, I don't. Why? Don't you think this would be better as a musical? And at that part, I thought, we're lost.

We're out. We're out. Thank you. Goodbye. Like that. ITV turning down very sadly, very nice at ITV. So we wish we were the kind of company

that made this and we're not. And eventually, we did that amazing thing of just waiting. You know this. If you wait for long enough in television, all the bosses change. Change, yeah. And it all goes right.

So is that how it happened? That's what happened. A lovely man at Channel 4 called Lee Mason just took the script, put it in his draw, locked it away and waited for all the bosses to change. And they did, and the new boss, Ian Katz came into Channel 4. And on day one, he went to Ian Katz's off school.

I've got a script for you. And Ian read it, bless him, and went, oh, we'll make this. Bang like that. It is so Channel 4 really, actually. I think it was a perfect home for it. Oh, oh, oh. And it's the channel I made Queer's Folk on.

Yes, exactly. It just felt at home. No, I'm delighted. I am a bit sad the BBC didn't make it because I do also think it's the history of the nation. I think there is something, I love Channel 4, but there's something niche about Channel 4. Channel 4 is designed for the voices that can't be heard elsewhere.

Yes, because I think actually, this is history. Yeah. This is happened to Britain. And you are the part. public broadcaster that we all pay for. So I wish they'd made it, yeah. I'm no one had told that story. Well, it's amazing because part of the problem

we're getting it commissioned was, I think everyone thought that story had been told because we'd had years of soap operas with someone popping up saying, I'm HIV positive. Every other episode of casualty would have someone popping up saying, I'm HIV positive. And I said, you also was doing a lot of American things.

And I would sit in these meetings when you haven't seen it. You actually haven't. And you could see people not believing me until it got on air. Then people finally went, oh, yeah, yeah, that's new. It's a new story. So it was hard there. I got a great producer called Nicola Schindler,

who's made queerest folk with me and everything. She's Manchester-based, and she is amazing. She's just at the patience to wait. She's a great wait. Just wait, just wait, just wait. We'll get there in the end. How did you end up in Manchester? I was simply on, I got a job,

my first ever job in telly at BBC Wales, which was kind of like £50 a day. The programme moved to Manchester. It's called Why Don't You Switch Off Your Telephone Set and Go Out and Do Something Instead? Can I just say, I remember that so well. Everyone watched that. Honestly.

Yes, do you remember? As a kids, we had such a laugh on that show. And so it moved from Cardiff to Manchester and I had like two months to go on a contract and they said, we can pay you off for two months or do you fancy go into Manchester? No expenses. That's the BBC. But I was, so I was like 22 or something and I was like, oh, that sounds like a laugh. My sister had lived in Berry for a bit.

so I kind of knew it's slightly up north and so on an adventure 1987 was the weirdest year I got off I got offered every job in town I got off at a job it's a cartoonist on a brand new newspaper which turned out to be the Sunday sport do you remember the Sunday sport

Dave Sullivan so I was like and I realized I was working for a pornographer so at the age of 23 or whatever I went no no no no thank you no no no no I got off for the job as a presenter on play school I got a job as a presenter on play school I've just got to say I think you'd be amazing

I think I'm still in it. That's what I'm doing. And honestly, you presenters, I don't know how you do it. I did one episode, one episode, and I walked out of the studio and went never again. Why? I absolutely felt on the wrong side of the camera. Oh. By that stage, I'd already done a few days behind the camera, just as a researcher, working on stuff.

And I could see them behind the camera, and I thought, literally, literally in the wrong job. And what great jobs have they? They were lovely. They got me an equity card. They went to so much bother. and I just went no, no, no, no. You're so arrogant when you're young, aren't you? Now I'm being, oh, I don't know.

I think what you were doing, you were listening to your gut, and you knew what was right for you. Yes, and that would have been an easy one to stay in, wouldn't it? You've got a job as a place called then. Lovely, that's going to run forever. And I just went, no, I just went, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, I literally went back on the dole, and then I got offered a job in Manchester, took that one, and that changed my life.

So it's funny, you just wait. I just, well, it was it chance? You just can't tell these things. But so I moved to Manchester. It was a two-month contract within three days of that city. I loved it. Yeah. I just loved it.

And I mean, it's just, it's, I've got to know it recently because my daughter lives on that. I love it. It's gorgeous. The vibe. Yep. The architecture. The town hall. Everything about it.

Everything about it. The people. The people. And within about it, I was in Tesco's and there was Audrey Roberts from Coronation Street. That's not why I like it here. It's a television city. Granada. It's a television city, yes.

I got a job with the BBC. 500 yards down the road was Granada, which at the time was starting to make prime suspect and cracker. And that's when my ambition started rising up as well. And that's when I thought, I'm in the wrong building. I want to be in that building down there. And I never said it to myself that clearly. But hindsight, it did that.

At the time we're a lot more confused and lost and wandering, aren't you? But nonetheless, the wandering was heading in that direction, where scripted drama was being made. stuff. And then where did you go? And then I went there. I got a job at Granada. I wanted to go there. I'd started making contact with them. I had a brilliant man there at Granada called Tony Wood. I was just, he saw this in me, to be blunt. And of all the people in my life, he was the first person to go, you're a writer.

You can do this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And very, once I've been there for about a year, he would be having a casual conversation. And he said, he said, last night, Liz, Liz Warner. do you think Russell can make it as a writer? And he went, oh, yeah, absolutely. And he just needs to, and he said that to me quite casually. Like we were having a drink or something. And in my head, oh, this man thinks I can actually make it as a writer.

Never forgotten it. It's weird. Little passing statements. But that's some magic, isn't it? Wow. Strange, isn't it? And obviously, your book's called The Queerest of Folk, but Queer as Folk was an absolute, like, ground-breaking. Did you watch that at the time?

Of course I did. And honestly, no, everybody did, right? It was. And I love the fact. I didn't, I couldn't believe there were only two series. That's so weird. Text, second, it was only two episodes. Yeah, I thought, like, I don't know why.

I thought it went on forever, but it didn't. We were just very, I still wonder whether we were very hungry and ambitious. Me and Nicola, me and Nicola and Lindler made that together. And it was so successful. And there were various shenanigans at Channel 4 with people leaving their jobs. Guess what? People are moving on. Yeah. And, but actually we were so ambitious.

We just wanted to do other things. Yes. We went straight off. We made a thing called a second coming. And then we made a thing on Bob and Rose with Alex and Leslie Sharp. And we made Casanova with David's time. We were just, we were kids. You look back and think, God, you had a lot in you.

We were hungry. Let's do this. Let's do that. Let's do this. And we did. Yeah. So, but we had a glorious time making that. And that was.

I mean, let me talk me through. Just for anybody who hasn't seen queer as vote, taught me through the kind of sales pitch that you gave to Channel 4. and how hard that was to get off the ground. Well, the funny thing is, they came to me because I've been working on a kind of soapy kind of, more like a down to nabby type drama at Granada, very cheap, much cheaper than downtown called The Grand,

which is the story of a 1920s hotel. It wasn't working as a show. You know when you're on a show that's not working? We've all been there, and it's a nightmare, isn't it? And everyone's... And you can feel it. Oh, my God. And everyone's arguing in offices.

No one's sending you the truth. Everyone's panicking. Everyone's not panicking. People are jumping ship rather than panicking. It's like you can feel the creaking timbers all around the place. And I think, so it was collapsing. So in the middle of a collapsing show, I kind of thought, I'm going to write what I want. And I wrote this entirely gay episode.

It was set in 1920. And I just said, I always had a notion that this barman played by a fantastic actor called Paul Warner is gay. And in 1920, a working class gay lad, no language, no freedom, nothing. Hasn't got the language in his heart to say what he is. And I thought, well, that's great. So I wrote a script for there. And that was seen. That was, and it was by far the best episode of the ground.

It suddenly stood above all the soap opera nonsense. I love that show. It wasn't nonsense. But it was literally a better script. So a lovely woman called Katrina McKenzie. Again, your friends, seeing things. So you. She took me out to lunch and sort of said, I mean, this was a more business-like meeting,

even though she's a mate. But she took me out and said, I'm off to Channel 4. That's what you should be writing. If you'd like to come and write that for us. we'd love to read it in that careful TV language I'm saying We can't promise

Exactly No contract Yeah yeah But it's as good as that at Exactly And they And more significantly They put me together

with Nicola Schindler Who had just left Granada herself To go as an independent And that's a lifelong friendship That's just happened There bang Like that

We just loved each other straight away And still go on to this day I adore her A lot of that book It's just all about her I think she's brilliant So yes

So I mean So it wasn't an automatic commission But I wrote it It poured out to me everything. All there. You forget those days that there weren't gay stories on telly

and they just, just the chance to write, I've been in soaps for years so, the chance to write swearing and drugs and sex and what I thought about the gay world and the gay community and the gay scene.

Oh, look at it now. It's like, it's like a bonfire. It's like my head's on fire. It really, really is. And I remember it, I remember it being phenomenally sexy. Like, yes.

And it was the first time. I think I'd watch same sex, like love, lust, all of it, or all of it, and seen a real proper true representation of what queer life could be like. Yeah. But it was shocking to some other people, like some, the mail gave you, was it Linda Lee Potter? Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Two literally.

This is the downfall of society. Yeah. But it's so sad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And which, I mean, we kind of love the provocation. let's be honest. It was hard one because Channel 4 got a bit scared at the same time. It was supposed to be like a 9 o'clock drama.

Then it shifted to 10 o'clock. Eventually it went out to 1030. Oh, did it? 10.30 when nothing went out of 1030. Yeah, we thought it was dead. We were like, good. Oh, no. They were still watching.

But then they realized their mistake and it just took it. We got to like, we were at number one in the album charts. The soundtrack was number one. I was going to talk about the soundtrack. I didn't know that. Yes, number one. I didn't know that. It was, I mean, everybody's.

Disc on our office wall. Is it on Spotify? It must be, I suppose. I'm looked. Gosh. Must be. Must be. I feel like I want to check that right now. It must be, surely.

Because honestly, the soundtrack was like the best bit. The music of the time was so good. Everyone was playing that soundtrack. It was brilliant. Oh, it got to number one. The VHS got to number one. It was on VAT. Like, you know, if it was meant to be a little channel four niche show about the queer community up and off,

went mad. It was lovely. Really lovely. Strange. And success is strange, isn't it? It's like you're not allowed to say that. But it is. It's very odd. But wonderful. Love every second of it at the same time. Also incredible when you think about the good that that was doing from the get-go. Well, the astonishing thing is now, the amount of people who come up to be, to this day, it's 2026 now. And they come up to be saying that changed my life. And I literally meet people in Manchester often who say, I move to Manchester. because of queer as folk. I'm actually, I know, this lovely man. Quite recently, he said I moved here, so I met my husband here,

we've never got kids here, I came because I had a beautiful friend called Jay who passed away at the age of 41, bless him. Lovely man. And when I went to his funeral, at the eulogy, his brother said, Jay only moved to Manchester because of queer as folk, which I'd never known.

He'd never told me that. I was like, what the hell? Like, so that's astonishing. That's really, really, only I get that. You know, there's not many people who can have, and see like material changes in people. That's one of my little things.

But I hold very close to my heart thinking, wow, that's gorgeous. When did it come out? 1999, it came out. Amazing. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Gorgeous.

What a year. That was an amazing year. And do you know what? That's kept a door open for me for the rest of my life. I mean, that was that literary a turning point. I'd lovely times in my career, Dr. Who's been brilliant. It's a sin's been brilliant. But queer as folk, when we went to Channel 4 with Tiptoe,

recently, they literally said, well, the door here is open to you because of queer as folk. And none of the staff are the same. Everyone's moved on. There's no one there who was there in 1999, but for a challenge to historically remember where it comes from and the legacy that's got was amazing. We were so thrilled. We were so touched by that, genuinely touched. If you've been thinking about starting your own business, then this is your sign to get

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Yeah. Yes. Yes, a tough piece of work. Tough piece of work. For what was that like to film? Well, like for Alan. As ever. Very hard for Alan.

I was just going to say. He's an amazing man. Cool. And him and David Morrissey together. You know their best friends? Although they're not just show me stories about the two of the main best friends. Were they best friends before? For 40 years.

Oh, I didn't know that. And they never appeared on camera together. And that way, they did their first little scene on Carole Street. We all gave them a round of applause because that was a real moment of history. It was Alan who suggested David for it. Because I kind of thought, if you'd ask me, I would have thought the Clive, the David Morrissey part, is kind of a secondary role to Learie.

and you don't ask David Marlacy to do secondary roles. So I would never have thought of asking him. And it was Alan who said, oh, let's get David on board. And actually then I kind of just did the writing as I went along to make Clive an equal part so that it was two leads. But what a gift. But very hard on both of them. But especially for Alan, it was a very well-sheduled. The producer Phil Connison was a genius.

Once we'd filmed that hanging, everyone had a week off. We had a hiatus week which you can't afford to do with television It's like no one has a week off So let's just talk about that quickly So the opening scene is you see what happens Yes you see a man being hanged Who has been hanged in a Manchester street

In daylight from a lamppost And you don't know why But then the story unfolds Then it unravels over 10 days They're built up to this But it's And it's my expression Where I think we're heading to be now

It's like here we are I was just talking now about the Manchester murders in the synagogue. You know, Jewish people have been killed on our streets, executed. In Britain, now, in 2026, women, God, what am I talking about? Women are murdered every day. It's like racism that's rising up in the streets. We can all feel it. And from my lens on this is through the queer community, obviously, where, let's face it,

if I had written a drama in which a man was beaten to death, that's a normal crime drama on, on ITV. If a gay man was beat to death, you could see that. That's why I had to make it a hanging to make it bigger, to make it more formal, to make it like an execution,

to make it almost stick-like, to make it, so it has almost a sort of act of ceremony to it, saying this is an official act that we are carrying out on behalf of the community. Because if it'd just be beat to death, that's a cop show.

So, yeah, it was, that was where I think we're heading. But I'm waiting for that to happen. some shape or form to this day. Terrify. What a world. I'd like just to touch on social media and this idea of the algorithms and hatred. And how do we change it? Like, how can we make the world a more loving place?

I'm so keen on trying to just spread love as the message. I know you are. And I don't know. Yeah, but how can we all do that? I think we have to bang on the door of every single MP and pest to them so that the media platforms are treated as publishers. So they're responsible for what they publish. That's the one change that I think we're not going to stop. I completely agree with banning it for under 16s.

I completely am completely. Yes, me too. Oh, absolutely. I mean, they're eight years old. Eight year olds flooded with porn out there. It's like, we're insane. We will look back on this society and say we are insane. And so really, it's like books can't publish what they want.

You can't say whatever you're like on this podcast. Every form of broadcasting or communication or media is responsible except for these tech pounds and these platforms. Just alter that law. Make them responsible for what they're doing. And we will see massive changes. I mean, it does scare me because it's like I did, you know, with the rise you get of racist voices online and homophobic by misogynist voices online.

I'm always torn thinking, does the freedom allow people to talk like that? Or have they always thought like that and they were just hidden before? That's what worries me. The other thing that I think is really weird is sometimes I feel like people are angry and hateful and spurting, shocking statements. But for clicks, that actually you meet them in the flesh. Yes. And you're like, oh, you're lovely. Yes.

You think you're not lovely online. Like what's going on? But it's like, oh, well, if I'm lovely, doesn't sell. Lovely or a friend of mine always says that if actually met these people who were being rude about you, you'd never be angry with them ever again because they're very lacking in all sorts of ways. So I think Lovely's the kind version. And I think I'm going to agree with his version. And also it's all like, oh, there's a very, very brilliant book been written by my uncle Harry Tanner,

called The Queer Thing About Sin, he's a historian. and it's a study of classical civilizations of ancient Athens. It shows how these patterns have happened again and again and again. In Athens it was there in 2000 BC. And it shows how it's amazing. It shows how outliers appear in society, rich, independent, rich men independent of government or church, and they achieve power.

And what they do with that power is malicious. All the Elon Musks, they've all been there throughout history. Can I just say you've written a very prophetic, book. Yeah, about like the right, the, the, the uprising of the right and like, you know, here we are. Yeah. I have been writing one over years.

Yes. It's quite weird. You know, when we look back. Yeah. Yes. You saw it coming. Well, I think, indeed. I think, I think, it's funny.

It's going by to my childhood home with my lovely mum and dad, they were, they were French teachers, they were also classics teachers. And I grew up with, there's a whole row of books on the bookcase. about Greek and Roman myths. And so from like five or six years old, I was kind of living with the fact that civilizations rise and civilizations fall. You sit there looking at the Roman Empire.

We joke about the Roman Empire now. You look at how many... I'm going to the theatre. I'm going to the National Sea Electra, which would be my fourth Greek story, a Greek tragedy of the year, with the Odyssey and the Oristeas of the witch. Anyway, but you look at these books saying

that civilizations rise, civilizations fall. So I've always kind of been... ready for this one to fall, and we're doing a really good job at heading that way right now. Frightening. Do you tell your kids that, though? Would you kids just think I'm an old man shouting at a cloud? No, but I think they can feel something's coming. Can they?

I keep singing, you know, that Florence and the Machine's song, Something's Coming. That's the last line of Tipto. I think something big is going to happen. Yeah, that's the last thing he says. That was a Kate Bush song. And I feel a something. Oh, she says, good. It's going to happen.

I don't know where it is, isn't it? You don't mean my Kate Bush story. No. Which is that her son was a very big Doctor Who fan. Yeah. So she used to write to the office. And one day she wrote me a long handwritten card. I want she loved Doctor Who and thank you for the gifts and thank you for this and please come to tea.

And I've loved Kate Bush all my life. I was, you know, I was, I was 14 when Wuthering Heights came out or I was that age, loved her. And I was so, talk about I needed your podcast, Davina, to give me send. and direction and common sense because I was so scared I didn't answer I was like it was cave boss I thought what I would yeah thank you

like what do I and I and so I left it on the shelf for like six months and then it gets worse I can't reply after six months she's just gonna think I'm so rude blah blah blah then one day I came home and my friend Tracy went

I've had a good clear and I've chucked up and the car had been chucked out with her telephone number on it and I never did I then many years later I then told this story on Desert Island Discs and she got in touch saying right, let's go for lunch

and then COVID came along and so we still happen and I kind of rather love the fact that I've never actually met Kay Bush it's like it's very funny but have you been storing up what you're going to say I don't know what I think I'd just cry I mean I would be the same

I had lunch with her once with Michael and I didn't I mean I'm the same as you yes that's kind of why I don't want to go I'd be an idiot she is the story of Mike She is like the soundtrack. Did you think I'll just talk like an idiot?

Yes, well, I just let Michael talk. I even had, I had two, those recent concerts she did. There was one-off concerts. I went. I had two seats and Andrew was ill. He wasn't well. He wasn't remember. Do you know what?

I didn't even tell him a theatre to resell the tickets. I just thought, I'm sitting there in that empty space. There's an empty space which is mine tonight. I cried all the way through. Oh, I bet. It was magnificent. Oh, God. So let's just talk quickly about years and years.

Yes. So tell me how, where did, where did the, that comes from? Well, that was the only time in my life that a TV boss has ever turned around to me. Lovely, Piers Wingo was the head of BBC drama at the time. No one's ever said this before. All since, he just turned around to me and said, what have you always wanted to write? The joy of joys.

Well, yes, I've always wanted to write a family going through time and experiencing life and the future happening around them and where I think the future's heading of things getting worse and worse and worse. So that was 2018. That was 2018. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was writing it then. I must have come out 2019. We made it. That's when Andrew died in

2018 and I came out in 2019. And yes, so it was like a great, when it came to write it I realized I had notes everywhere that I'd been keeping of historical things and medical things that have been happening. Yeah, it'd been getting ready to write it. I had old copies of the new scientists

with pages folded. I go, what's this? Oh, that article about macular degeneration. How that could be cured now. That happens in one episode. Yeah, so I'd been building up a store for 20 years, I think, ready to write it, and then it all came out. I love that show. What a cost. It really, really was mind-blowing. Was it?

Yeah. Oh, thank you. And brilliantly thought-provoking. And I think, again, one of those brilliant aspects to everything that you do is that it's controversial enough to make us all want to go and go, God, did you see that? So weird, like somebody wanting to, you know, change, like, where they are, implants or some kind of... Transhumanism. Yes.

So, and how that's just got kind of more and more, hasn't it, really, with this idea that we can have little things on grassland or implants or, yes. Phone building your hand. Yeah. They do that and they've got a phone there. So nuts. And we think, oh, that's nuts, but it's coming. I did have fun with it.

I mean, I have fun with it. But there's strange things that are not fun at all. You look at the rise of Russia. and its aggression towards the West. And so I invented an invasion of Ukraine. Yes, I mean, that's frightening. Well, there we go. But that's obviously where they were heading,

because they'd already annex Crimea. So it's just a small, I look at a psychic. It's not psychic at all. Every politician of any now was sitting there going, it'll be Ukraine next. And indeed it was. So, yeah, very strange to look at. But I loved it.

I did love to. There was a lot of, that had built up in my heart for a very long time. I loved writing it, yeah. You talked about Andrew just then dying in 2018, and I was just wondering if you could tell me a bit about Andrew. And I know you have talked about revisiting the moment you first saw him. And I just wondered if he would take us on that journey. That's why Canal Street is woven into my heart really. That's why I love writing about Canal Street.

Because 12th of April, 1998, there was out club. I know, there I was. In the days when clubs used to close at 2 a.m. Yeah. It's closed then. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If we had our licences and laws now, I probably never met him because I just carried on. But it was 10 to 2 in the morning.

And in a gay club, that's when you pull or you don't. It's like that's it or you go home alone. You know, honestly, you've been there. Scanning around like that. And the amazing thing about meeting Andrews is that we both lived in Manchester for at least 10 years. And we both went out clubbing on Canal Street. And that's only the same few pubs and clubs. we'd never seen each other.

I couldn't believe that, because the moment I saw him, I was like. And I absolutely swear, this sounds like hindsight. Absolutely, this is true. And I don't believe in any sort of mystical nonsense at all. But I literally saw him across a club called Cruise 101. And I literally thought, oh, that's him.

It did. I absolutely did. And then so we went home together that night. That was a Saturday night. And I, honest to God, walked into work on the Monday morning with Nicolshendler, which is, if a good weekend, I went, yeah, I met a man. And she's witnessed to this. I said, I think this one's going to last for years.

And it is not funny? And wait. When you, you met, you met Andrew, but did you talk and swap numbers? Did you? Yes. Were you spent the night together or did you not have a night together and for a number of us? Let's go out next weekend. Oh, wow.

I mean, you can't ever say you knew. But on that, two days later, I was saying to Nicolet, this is going to last for years. I just knew. And it did. And it did. It lasted for 20 in the end. 20 years. Yeah, absolutely fantastic.

Yeah, yeah. Gorgeous. You love it. He loved you. And I say, what was your channel 4th question with all the money coming down? Oh, the million pound drop?

No, no, the million pound drop. Oh, five minutes to fortune? Five minutes to a fortune. Yes. We love that. That was a brilliant. That was such an exciting show. That was underrated show.

But so tell me, like, you two got together. Yes. And what was that, were those first sort of 10, 12 years like? Oh, well, the funny thing is, because 12 years in, you got brain cancer. Yes. I have a hard time remembering the first 12 years,

which I need to work on. I need to work on. I don't have forgotten them. And we did all sorts of holiday together, stuff like that. But what I think, when you say to me, Andrew, it's the last eight years.

Right. My mind goes vo-th-da-da. How did that happen? But not necessarily in a bad way, because actually the second, the last eight years were more intimate and closer and in a way more beautiful. I wish she wasn't ill, obviously.

But in a way, that was like the real relationship. Yes. Well, because in those eight years, we practically spent every hour of every day together because he had, you know, he was diagnosed to brain cancer. You're supposed to live for like 18 months maximum. He lived for eight years. That's incredible, isn't it? It was incredible. And so, more or less with him every second of the day, he had seven brain operations, seven.

I can't remember what they were. If you asked me to live, I can remember what four of them were. What are the other three? What the hell was going on? And that's a lot to recover. That's a lot to recover. That's a lot to recover from. That was like months in hospital sometimes.

For a 1.3 months in hospital. Just like a one point, he had to sleep next to a giant spirit level, a big yellow metal spirit level because he couldn't come off the horizontal. If he did that, it's like, we'll be ill. Wow. Which is the fluid in his bed. Spirit level. Next thing like that, mad.

Gosh, the things we saw. And am I right in saying he didn't want to. to know what his prognosis was. He didn't. That's really interesting. When it was first diagnosed, and actually, because I got the diagnosis, I went straight online and it's a terrible diagnosis. Yeah, my sister had it. Well, she had lung cancer, but when her secondary was glioblastoma.

Oh, there we are. And you just know it. It's bad, isn't it? I didn't know that, darling. Gosh. It's the thing, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I knew, and some little survival, he loved scrolling on his own, but some little survival

instinct made him not looking up. We all look it up. He didn't. He said they're doing bloody Sudoku or something. Never looked it up. And then we went for the official diagnosis with a fantastic doctor called Dr. McBain who explained. Yes, this is stage four cancer. And he hadn't even looked up the fact that if it's stage four, that's bad.

What that means. Yeah, there is no stage five. And she said, do you want the, that's the diagnosis, do you want the prognosis? And completely out the blue, he went, no, no thanks. Oh, we hadn't discussed that. I just presumed he would. Oh, fine. and then, because I knew, because I'd looked it up.

So as we left the room, he had a fantastic McMillan nurse called Sarah. I'm still in touch with them, Instabby. I'm an amazing woman. And I said, is that all right that he doesn't know? She went, it's fine. Yes. She said, she said, you'd be surprised how often that happens. She said, as long as someone close knows the truth.

And she said, you know the truth. I mean, yes, I do. That's fine. We just need that. And actually, in some ways, I mean, I'm no one to say this as a lesson. I'm not saying this is what you should do, as everyone's different. but looking back on him, I do think sometimes that helped him live for so long

because I tell you what, there were times, there were so many times where we'd go to, A&E at four in the morning, and he had a blinding headache, or he'd be throwing up, he got every infection in the world, and so we'd go into hospital, and sometimes he's staying for weeks,

he never thought he was dying. He never, no headache. Did he think, this is it, this is the end? And I think that helped. I think he was always just great inconvenienced at my wife up of hospital, don't worry, you be home soon. And that story kind of,

worked. It was like weaving a story. I do feel like, and I actually felt like I was telling him a story all the time. And I would. And I'd sort of say when we do this, when you get better. I was very careful not to lie. But I'd say, we will do this, we'll do that. So we had actually a very nice life. I'm lucky enough I've got another house in Swansea, so we could stay down there. That's by the sea. And he loved it there. He loved it so much. My sisters were wonderful to him. Great family. He's got a great family. So there was a lot of comfort and joy and love in those years, an awful lot of it. I must concentrate on those first 12 years. It's by kind

of my task for the next few years to say. Yeah, it would be interesting that to go back. I wonder why it's hard to see it. It's just more intimate. It's just it was in a kind of way, I mean that's the first 12 years. I was working a lot. I've busy. Oh, let's not quite a day. I'm busy, sorry.

There was not a lot of that going on. And I spent a long time working in Cardiff. You think you've got forever, don't you? Well, exactly. That's the thing as well. Yes, you're running about like a mad fly. And actually, this makes you stop and So, right? And you say, you know, right, I'm going to come to, I missed his very first, because I was busy and gadding about Oliver, but I missed his very first meeting where they said, you've got brain cancer. So after that, I came home out, oh, my God. And so after that, I said, I'm never going to miss another medical meeting. I went to every single meeting with you and did. Strange is your life. You'd love him. That darkening. He was delightful. I already do. Thank you. That's a lovely guy to say. He's really, really wonderful, yeah. Yeah. I had the same thing with my. I had the same thing with my.

sister. The last, she was, we were told she had 18 months and then the doctor said to me, actually it probably is more like nine. But she died seven weeks later. But those seven weeks, just like you, would have. I used to read interviews with you. And it's a great consolation. You see someone going through the same thing. And you talked to one interview about, was it every Sunday night? You did the pills? That's a huge job, isn't it? Counting out the pills. Absolutely. And that was my, I think, well, I did Sunday night. So I don't know if you did the same thing. but it was Sunday night. Lay had the week's pills.

It's a lot. It's an awful lot. I got the wrong once. And he started getting very ill. Instead of like two of those, one of those, I was doing one of those and two of those. I had for three weeks he was very ill. And then I went, oh, she read the back of the bloody boxes. I was like, oh, my God.

We had to go and see the doctor this, this is Dr. McBain who sit there goes, it's very strange. You're getting all dizzy. You know, we can't quite work it out. I like to sit in this meeting going behind old, but behind Andrew's back, doing, imagine if you given, someone. Someone had given like a double dose of that and a single, could that cause these symptoms? And she was like, oh. We never told him.

She went, mm-hmm. I think I've sorted now then? Yes. That's not brilliant. I'm terrible. I'm a murderer, basically. You're not terrible. It's so hard.

It's funny how you remember the bad stuff? Yeah. It's like, it's like, it's like human instinct that says, I looked after him night and day. And then eventually when he was dying, he was in hospital. They said this is, that I had to tell him. him he was dying. His doctor was in and of a hospital. Really? And she phoned with the results in the scan and she said, well, I could come by tomorrow. She said, you could tell him. So I was the one to tell him, he was dying, which actually,

I think it's one of the greatest privileges of my entire life. Thank God it came from you. Oh, I think so. It's like, I'm making myself sound very marvelous. I'm not sure I handled it quite that well. I was like, oh, my God. I was much sadder and emotional that I expected to me. I thought it'd be all cool and calm and marvelous. And I wasn't. I was like, oh, my God. You're the first thing he said? He said, I feel sorry for you. you. Oh. I know. That's what he was like. That's, isn't that like? Oh, wow. I mean, Jesus. That's, that's what he was like. Amazing, isn't it? On an LHS ward with the curtains pulled around us.

And I, a nasty man in the bed next to us. Oh, it was just so weird. But what an intimate beautiful moment to share. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Was he, was he scared? No. Actually, I've got to say. At that point. And I actually, I think, I said, I don't know how true this is, but he was tired of it all by then. That was, he'd gone, he gone back onto chemotherapy. I'd a long time without chemo. Then I'd go back on chemo. I was like, oh, it's exhausting.

And he was sleeping a lot. And I'm not saying, I'm never, I don't remotely mean he wanted to die. But he was very tired of it. And actually, it's with that cancer, that for, or his version of that cancer, it might not happen to everyone. It was kind of a forgiving way to slip out the world because he just slept and slept and slept. Yeah. It was gone. Yes.

There was now. And sometimes cancer can be awful and bloody and horrific and painful. It wasn't that, I've got to say. And also, the great secret of the world, at least in Manchester, was palliative care from the NHS. Our greatest secret, magnificent. The nurses, the care, the district nurses coming around to the house. Oh, my God. Those beautiful people.

It was amazing. And then there's a beautiful moment where quite by accident you were with him. when he died because you were... Yes. Yes, well, he was meant to every... My lovely sister came up to him. My other sister was in New York. She would have come.

The sister Susie was there. And she just came up for like three days. And after about the fifth day, I turned around and went, what are you doing here? You're still here? She went, I think I'll stay. I thought, okay. You're going to realize it's ending that way.

And a lovely, lovely friend of asking him, and Lynn, Lynn Hunter, who ended up becoming the celebrant at his funeral. And she'd lost her husband. but she said he's just got a couple of days left and he took that from her. But weirdly, every Saturday night the Marie Curie nurse was booked to come around.

Oh, our lifesavers, please, please, please give money to Marry Qia. Yeah, they are amazing, aren't they? Amazing, I mean, if you don't know what it is, it's like when you're in a period of suffering where you're caring for someone, they give you one eye off. This angel simply comes to the house and sits there so unobtrusively so you can just go to be. bed early. I didn't do it. Yeah, I went to bed early and read a book. And so every Saturday night, that was

the case that Mary Q nurse would sit with Andrew. And then that Saturday night, the nurse didn't turn up. I'm sitting there and my sister going, where are they then? And then I kind of went, oh, oh, wait a minute, I didn't say to book it. But I was taking, I was assuming this was a regular thing. I didn't tell the district nurse. It was my thoughts. Didn't bug it. So it doesn't matter. We said to stay there. And then strangely, that's the night. He died. So my sister and I were there literally holding one hand each on either of him and if the nurse had come we would have gone off and been upstairs and or maybe

he would have always passed away with us who knows you can't tell but isn't that strange it was kind of like we were meant to be there and that was a moment to be there. Were you there for your sister? Were you there at that moment? It's It was an honour. Yes it is an honour. Yes it is

isn't it? It's kind of indescribable really I'm supposed to have the words but yeah I was there. I'm really pleased you were Yeah. Oh, yes, yes, yes. I do think, I also think some people miss it. And I do think you should say to people don't, you didn't miss anything. Yeah.

You know, I wasn't there when my mother passed away. And I kind of fine about that. It's how my sisters were. And I don't beat myself up about that. No, fine, whatever. It's like, that's not the important thing, actually. Can I say that's another thing I really love about you is that when we've said something and it was a lovely moment for you, but you have constantly said.

But if you can't do that, if you don't do it, gal. Yeah. You are such a thoughtful man. No, honestly, it's one like... But I do think, we live in this world, don't we? When we're told to do this, be there,

do it. All the wellness guides and things like that, be with someone when they're dying. It's like, you can't always. And actually, and I wasn't there with my mum, I wasn't with my mum when she died for any other reason. I was just fed up.

How many hours can you see at the hospital bed? I was awful. And, you know, she didn't look well at all. And I just went home. But sometimes she might have been waiting for you to go. They say that as well, don't they? Do you know what? For years, I thought, I tell you what, my lying family, it's like for years I thought, oh, I did think, oh, my sisters were there.

I wasn't. I can't thought they win. You know? All right. The constant family battle, they win. And only very recently they both confessed they were both asleep. It was only about a year ago. I was like, what?

For years, for 20 years. I'd be gone, oh, I wasn't there. They went over. They went over. Bless them. That is really funny. I love them for that. It's funny.

I was thinking when you were saying about his prognosis and him not wanting to know his prognosis about how nowadays we are always being told you are what you say you are. You know, like you can look into the mirror and go, I'm a wellness-making machine and your body hears you in some way. and how him not knowing could have been the thing that kept him going. I do wonder. That if you know you've got 18 months predicted, then you've got a limit. It ticks away, doesn't it? Yeah, it does. You've got like a time bomb in your head, and that's not good.

Unless, unless I'm going to see the other points of view now, which is there. Maybe some people live in those 18 months and do all the things they want to do and say. Maybe they live for 18 months well than 12 months. Did you have a bucket list? Julie didn't really because we'd had a very nice life and we'd travelled a lot we'd done things no, he didn't have anything like that

it's like we were never happier than we'd just start watching television we loved that's one of the very first met one of our very first got I'd tend to do in the morning in cruise order one I think within about five minutes I was oh so do you watch Coronation Street

yes it are good okay that's right that's it moving that's it lovely honestly and we loved watching television again loved it Oh my God, the two of us were the night of Richard Hillman on Coronation Street when he kidnapped Gail and the family and drove them into the canal. It's like, we've never been happier. Extatic fits.

Isn't it lovely to have those memories with you forever? Oh, isn't it? Yes, yes, yes. That was one of the first 12 years. There we go. Yeah. You've started me. Yeah.

It's opening up. Good. Good. Yeah. We're on a podcast called Begin Again. Yes. And I know that after losing a big love, it's very hard to believe you'll ever find love again. Yes, that's very true.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you have? Madly, I know. There's a man called Oliver, who's six for two, blonde, Australian. And I wasn't even looking. I literally thought, you know, who's looking for anything like that? And I'm not particularly, I'm not particularly social. I don't really go out.

And I've got to parties. I've been to a party for years. I just don't do that. And I don't go to the pub. What do you do? I sit home and I watch telly and I work. I'm very, very hard worker and so that is, and I like that. I'm very, very happy.

I'm genuinely happy watching the tally. And give me in front of the chase of Bradley Walsh. I have the happiest hour ever. There was a celebrity special on last night. They won $120,000. I was ecstatic, honestly. It thrills. I love that stuff.

I love it. So I wasn't remotely looking at all. And then that's when bang, along comes someone who was. just lovely. We just had pride together. He came up to mention him from his first pride, Oliver's first pride. How long ago did you meet? It's been over a year now. It's been a year and three

months now and it's lasting. And how did you meet? I'd say it's a terrible thing, but it was online where he commented on something I'd posted on Instagram and then I look at as you do. I mean, to be honest, I often ignore comments and things like that because there's too much going on. But I looked at his photo.

Oh, hello. So Genuine. Hi, yeah, like that. And then we got chatting. And then I did think this is dreadful. He's just a good-looking young man. And you shouldn't do this. And I just don't do that sort of thing.

And then, but then you just don't know who you are in the end. It's something you are that person. And but he was always lovely and funny and witty. And even then, I thought he took eventually after three months of chatting with no sexting or anything like, nothing. Just literally chatting on to each other. And he said, Lowe's School for Dinner, where are you in London School for Dinner? And I was like, I literally didn't think that was a date. Yeah.

I just thought this is... I thought it would be really lovely to have a dinner with a really nice man. And in the middle of that dinner, he leaned, everyone kissed me. And I was like, what the hell? I was like, this. What? What? Do what? Do what? Do what?

What? Literally, what? Going on? And then here we are. Isn't that mad? Just wasn't looking for it at all. I'm so happy for you. Thank you.

You've had a tough time. And what's nice is we talk about Andrew an awful lot. There's no way. He doesn't feel threatened by that in any way. Oh my God, he loves stories about him. No, all the time. Especially in my house. It's like, Andrew this.

You know, you go all your world. Oh, a million stories. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so that's lovely, I think. I think that's a really helpful lesson to people. to understand. When you've loved somebody and lost them, it doesn't mean that they've gone from your life.

Oh, my God. How you feel. No, no, no. Oh, I still talk to Andrew all the time. I'm still, when he first, in the first few years when he gone, I'd say something out loud to him. And if I knew that he wouldn't have heard me,

I'd repeat it. Do you know what I mean? Did you hear me? Yes. I knew that he, I didn't say that loud enough around the corner. What I mean is, what the hell? What am I doing?

It's funny, isn't it? Totally. But I love that. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I really can't finish this like interview without talking to you about Doctor Who, obviously.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you are synonymous with that show and you kind of came and went and came and went. And you've just left again. Yes, yes, yes. And this is like a big end of an era. Yeah. Not to say it won't start again, but just like this era. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

but taught me through how that started. Gosh, that was, that was, I mean, it was off air. So by the time I became a television writer, it hadn't been on tell you for quite some time. I always loved it. I always, because I loved it, I always thought it should come back equally. I kind of thought that'll never come back. Yes.

Because it was an old, clunky, funny old show that maybe had had its day. But then, so, but quite by accident, and I didn't plan this, I swear to you, I began my own campaign to bring it back because I put, in queer as folk, I put a Doctor Who loving fan into that who was surrounded by all the paraphernalia, K-9 appeared in the show and things like that. And the reason I was doing that

was to show that Doctor Who fans could be cool and sexy and nice. They didn't have to be the nerdy geek, anorex, the stereotype show. So that was my reason for doing it. But that accidentally linked my name with Doctor Who. And so then the BBC began to be interested in bringing it back. And so my name was the one that was linked It was pure chance like that

And then one day someone said to Jane Trander The head of drama of Rosal. Nicola Schindler said to Russell wants to do that. We were all at a lodge party of Linda Green starring Lisa Tarbuck. Oh yeah. Yeah, remember that? Oh my God, yes.

That strange is a pivotal show in the history of Doctor Who because at the launch party in Manchester in the Lowry Hotel. Yeah. Nicola said to Jane Russell would like to do Doctor Who. Jane literally said she looked across the room

and went, oh, that's it. That's how to bring back Dr. Hu. That's it. So I didn't really have to beg and plead and scratch and whimper because then they came to me and said, do you want to do it? Which I couldn't believe for a long while. I spent about a year going,

this isn't real and you'll never afford it. And also what sort of Doctor Who? Do you mean like an ironic Doctor Who? Do you mean like a piss take of it? Do you mean like a late night cheap going all? You know, and then when I realized it was the real deal they were out. It was the real deal. Which is a huge deal because...

I launched an entirely new generation of fans. It's lovely. I can literally care, because I live in Manchester, which is a very student-y town, as you know. So students are now of that age where they come up to me in the street and say, you made my childhood, which is very strange. Several people here saying the same thing. It's funny. Someone came up to me the other day and said, I had a tortoise in my garden. Wow.

And they really mean it. It's like, it's such a compliment. It's the nicest thing in the world. One of the nicest things about it is that I walk down the street and I, and every day I get smiled up by someone. And it's kind of a Doctor Who's It's either a queerist folk smile Or it's a doctor who smile It's just a like that

What a life? What a lot, what a privilege? I know, who has that? You do? Yeah, I know. It's so good. It's mad, yeah, yeah. It's a little glimpse into why pop stars go mad

Because you can see if people do that to you all the time The world must look crazy It's like genuinely That's what pop stars and film stars care Everyone doing that to them No wonder you got mad. Oh my God. That's strange.

You can put all your friends in it because you've, I mean, I've only met you once before, but I was in it twice. Devina droid. That's right. Which was epic. You were on stage. You were presenting when we won the BAFTA in 2006. So brilliant. You were there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, what timing? Yeah. But honestly, the reaction that I had from you putting me in that show was so good. The Chutti app was mega. Merry Christmas, Davina Nicole. That's so good. Couldn't resist. I mean, you did, obviously, Tiptoe was the last thing out this year,

but you've got something else brewing and you're not sure what it is. I tell me what I have you're coming. What's that process? Oh, go on, go on. Oh, no, that brewing process is just, actually the brewing process is horrible. Is it why? It doesn't make sense. Why am I doing this?

Will it work? Who should we get? No, I don't know what are doing. Is that a plot to us too far? Is that silly? It's all those doubt. Do you know the 27 roads? How do you do it?

Do you pin things on boards? Is it all here? No, no, no. Oh, God. I know a lot of writers do, and it works for a lot of writers. But that's just the same as having it there. And in fact, I think that formalises a bit, was if it's just here, it can all...

Do you tell friends? Do you talk it through with anyone? No, no, no. Now I've got a brand new boyfriend who says, you're alone. Oliver's going to get used to this, because I said, oh, I'm thinking about a new thing, and you thought, what is it? I'm never you might.

I'm not telling you that. It's absolutely. Is that because they might infect it? The more you say out loud it kind of formalizes itself, and it settles. So it's like, no, you've got to let it go anywhere and do anything. And so, and it might not happen. But actually, then I got, fun enough, I got an email off Nicola Schindler the other day, say,

I've just been through the files. You were first talking about this in 2018. I thought it was a brand new idea. She would like, actually, it's been here as a piece of paper for a long time. Great. That's a good sign. She's an amazing partner for you. Oh, my God.

Adore her. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes, yes, yes. She's the best. But what we have got going on, workwise, is in February, in, in May, Manchester, Rombert are doing a dance version of It's a Sin. How lovely is that? Next year?

Temporary, yes, it's from 27. When are the tickets out? They're out now. But it's also going to... February and Manchester, it goes all around the country, the end. Sadler's Wells, in October, I think, come to Sadler's Wells. It's like, we'll do that. But I could come to Manchester because...

Take my daughter. Oh, my God, yes. She'd love it. Russell, you are... You have single-handedly made the world a better place. Oh, stop it. No, Russell, you have. You make us feel seen.

Thank you. You make people who are on the outskirts, they feel on the fringes of life, feel part of. I hope so. You do good in the world. And please let us all be a bit more, Russell. I really love you. And I knew you'd be this good, but you did not disarmes. Point me. Thank you. That's a great relief.

Thank you. I would hate to fit your walt. It would be terrifying, I think. Even me pissed off is quite a softie really like it already. But thank you. Thanks so much for coming on. We haven't done each other for a while now. I knew we got on today. Yeah, me too. And you are just, you do great things in the world.

Just a joy and a presence and a boom. Love you right back. Thank you, darling. Russell T. Davis, everyone. Hey! I'm sitting down, I'm going to squeeze you on the floor. So just in case you missed this episode here, if you love today's episode, I know you're going to love that one.

That one. There.