{"id":790908,"date":"2026-10-03T18:06:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T18:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/790908\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T18:06:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T18:06:15","slug":"one-person-turned-up-at-my-house-russell-t-davies-on-fierce-fandom-finding-love-after-grief-and-the-fear-that-drives-him-to-keep-a-knife-by-the-door-russell-t-davies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/790908\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018One person turned up at my house\u2019: Russell T Davies on fierce fandom, finding love after grief – and the fear that drives him to keep a knife by the door | Russell T Davies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Russell T Davies is a man who prefers to look on the bright side. That time he was gay-bashed by a gang of bus conductors? \u201cPeople have been beaten up far worse than me, that was just a bit of a thumping in the street.\u201d When the production schedule of his dystopian drama Years and Years<\/a> forced him back to work within days of his husband\u2019s death? \u201cWriting was a nice escape.\u201d Even a story about his \u201ctough\u201d father branding him \u201cyesterday\u2019s man\u201d after his initial departure as showrunner on Doctor Who concludes with a cheerful: \u201cI knew I wasn\u2019t.\u201d It\u2019s easy to see how he\u2019s earned a reputation as the most affable man in TV, if not the world. So why has he taken to keeping a kitchen knife by his front door, \u201cready to use\u201d?<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m called a paedophile and a groomer online by people like [Father Ted creator and anti-trans activist] Graham Linehan, and now people believe what they read. People believe it when they\u2019re told the Earth is flat,\u201d he says. His support for trans rights has resulted in years of death threats and \u201cgroomer\u201d smears, which he used to brush off. \u201cBut the online world is becoming the real world. People have worked out my address, and one person turned up at my house. If you believe a paedophile lives here, it\u2019s not the maddest thing in the world to come and get me. I\u2019ve been saying for years that our rights are paper-thin, and here we are. What scares me is that I can\u2019t see an end to it. Nothing is going to unseat these tech barons \u2013 it will require some sort of revolution to stop them. So for the first time in history, hatred is being monetised by an algorithm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Davies, 63, is the great chronicler of queer British life, having made his name with the groundbreaking (and jaw-dropping) Queer As Folk in 1999. The show\u00a0followed the lives of three gay men in Manchester, and was a surprise hit, but not without its provocations. The Daily Mail wrote that, \u201cAny nation which allows\u00a0this \u2026 [is] hell-bent on destruction.\u201d Among the controversies was its depiction of a one-night stand\u00a0between Stuart, 29, and Nathan, 15. In today\u2019s climate, where accusations of grooming are regularly levelled at gay men, would he still write such an inflammatory storyline? \u201cI would,\u201d he says. \u201cAlthough it\u2019s slightly different these days \u2013 because in 1999 Nathan would\u2019ve been in school under section 28<\/a> [a law banning the \u2018promotion\u2019 of homosexuality], meaning that he had no one to talk to. I was trying to say, \u2018This is what\u2019s going to happen.\u2019 Of course, Nathan wants to get fucked, and he\u2019s got no one to talk to about it. People say: \u2018Oh my God, he was 15, that\u2019s illegal.\u2019 It\u2019s a drama!\u201d<\/p>\n

Aidan Gillen and Craig Kelly in an episode of Queer as Folk, 1999. Photograph: Channel 4The Queer as Folk cast and crew, Canal Street, Manchester, 1998. Photograph: Courtesy of Russell T Davies<\/p>\n

We\u2019re meeting to discuss The Queerest of Folk, a galloping memoir of Davies\u2019s life as Britain\u2019s most celebrated showrunner. He\u2019s previously criticised the new generation of TV writers<\/a> for prioritising positive representation over good storytelling \u2013 his own interest lies in the nuances. His most recent drama, Tip Toe<\/a>, about a simmering feud between neighbours on opposite ends of the political divide that boils into a horrific act of violence, upset some viewers by including a gender-critical character, Stephanie. What inspired her? \u201cI think it\u2019s important to hear all voices. Years and Years and It\u2019s a Sin both had lead gay characters who were Tory voters \u2013 if you watch most dramas you\u2019d think those people don\u2019t exist. I know people who are gender critical. The whole argument is so polarised that to some people the fact that she\u2019s gender critical means she might as well be a murderer, which is just nonsense. There are people with genuine concerns, and they need to be discussed. Where is the debate?\u201d<\/p>\n

Another character, Melba, delivers a powerful monologue about the state of LGBTQ+ rights, with a fleeting reference to \u2018\u2018women who are furious, and with good reason\u201d. What did he mean? \u201cHe\u2019s saying maybe on the issue of women\u2019s sports he agrees [with a gender-critical perspective]. We left it vague, but why\u2019s there an assumption that no camp gay man would ever say that? Why\u2019s it a surprise? I could absolutely go out on Canal Street and find you a rightwing drag queen. It\u2019s important to show that. It\u2019s kind of my job to show those\u00a0complexities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Davies is a titan of television \u2013 and in real life. His 6ft 6in frame fills the doorway of his Swansea home, where he greets me with literal open arms. Inside, I\u2019m gratified to discover that the TV is on; he famously never turns it off, even when he goes out (\u201cMy new one turns itself off automatically. I really resent that.\u201d). It continues humming away in the living room while we chat at his dining room table, which features a ceramic Tardis and is overlooked by an original Peanuts cartoon illustration \u2013 a rare splurge that cost him \u00a32,000. His parents, both classics teachers, were the same, leaving the TV on even when they had guests.<\/p>\n

double quotation markDavies was three when he watched William Hartnell regenerate as the Doctor. \u2018That episode is missing from the BBC archives, but it\u2019s burned into my head\u2019 Photograph: Harry Borden\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Despite their \u201cawe\u201d at television, Davies could never quite bring himself to admit to his father that he wrote for it full-time. \u201cMy mum said never to tell him that I didn\u2019t have a normal nine-to-five job, because he would just nag me about it, he\u2019d never understand. So until his death he never knew.\u201d In 1991, when Davies quit his job as a children\u2019s TV producer to pursue writing, he omitted to tell his dad, Vivian. \u201cWhen I\u2019d have dramas on television that I\u2019d written, he\u2019d ask: \u2018When did you do that, then?\u2019 And I\u2019d say: \u2018In my spare time.\u2019\u201d Vivian was blind for the last 25 years of his life, which could make him quite \u201cangry and result in moments of nastiness which didn\u2019t become him\u201d (hence the \u201cyesterday\u2019s man\u201d comment). One consequence of his blindness was that Davies\u2019s mum had to narrate the action of Queer As Folk to him. Davies prefers not to dwell on this. \u201cCan you imagine her having to describe rimming? I think I gave it to them on Christmas Eve.\u201d<\/p>\n

His first memory is at three and a half watching the original Doctor Who<\/a>, William Hartnell, regenerate. \u201cSomeone told me the other day that you don\u2019t have strong memories before the age of six, but that\u2019s not true. That episode is missing from the BBC archives, but it\u2019s burned into my head.\u201d It was an origin story in more ways than one; his biggest triumph came when he successfully lobbied the BBC to relaunch Doctor Who after a 16-year hiatus (today, I notice that even his shower is home to a toy Dalek). During his initial tenure as showrunner, from 2005 to 2010, it became the No 1 show on British television. In June 2009, he decided to leave on a high, moving to Los Angeles where he was commissioned to write Cucumber (about a middle-aged man confronting his gay shame) for Showtime, but declined roles rewriting Skyfall and working on a George Lucas Star Wars project. He later turned down another role writing on a little show called Succession.<\/p>\n

Then in 2011, Davies\u2019s partner of 12 years, Andrew Smith, started having \u201challucinations of an Edwardian lady smiling at him sarcastically\u201d. These turned out to be symptoms of a stage four brain tumour, and Smith was initially given just 18 months to live. In a 2007 interview<\/a>, Davies had said his focus was on his work adding: \u201cIf I\u2019m writing, I would walk over [Andrew\u2019s] body if he had a heart attack.\u201d But when Smith fell ill, the opposite turned out to be true. The pair moved back to the UK, and Davies quit work to become Smith\u2019s carer. \u201cI surprised myself. Before that, I\u2019d have thought I wouldn\u2019t be able to do it; I\u2019d hire nurses and get people in and outsource it. But when it comes to it, you realise you don\u2019t want a stranger looking after him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Davies with his late partner, Andrew Smith. Photograph: Courtesy of Russell T Davies<\/p>\n

Despite his initial prognosis, Smith lived until 2018. Davies resumed working from their home in Manchester \u2013 relocating Cucumber from Seattle to Canal Street and winning best writer at the Bafta Cymru awards for A\u00a0Very English Scandal, among other projects \u2013 but rarely left Smith\u2019s side. \u201cWe were together for 20 years, but when I think of him now, I think of the last eight years,\u201d he says, his Welsh boom softening. \u201cUp until that time, we\u2019d never really lived together. From 2011 onwards, the memories are vivid. I remember every day, almost. It\u2019s weird, because there\u2019s intimacy in a life-or-death situation. There was honesty. He lived much longer than expected, and so every year after that became a joy.\u201d After his death, Davies writes that he spent eight years sitting at home. In practice, this meant completing Years and Years, a surprise return as showrunner on Doctor Who, and writing the Royal Television<\/a> Society award-winning It\u2019s a Sin (about the Aids crisis), the Helena Bonham Carter-starring biographical miniseries Nolly (about another of his early obsessions, the Crossroads star Noele Gordon) and Tip Toe, alongside other ventures. Aside from these professional highs, Davies concedes that, \u201cIt was a little bit monastic.\u201d Then, once again, his optimism rallies. \u201cBut I\u2019m happy watching the telly. It was quiet, but that was fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year, this relative quiet was broken when Davies met Oliver Cole, a 27-year-old model on Instagram. \u201cI\u00a0normally ignore DMs, but I looked at his photos and thought, \u2018Oh, hello!\u2019\u201d he hoots. \u201cWe DMd each other for about three months. Not sexting. I didn\u2019t think it was anything like that, because of his age. But he was such a nice man that I thought I\u2019d have dinner with him. It turned out it was far more than that. He\u2019s lovely.\u201d Cole has since become Davies\u2019s third ever boyfriend. \u201cIsn\u2019t that mad?\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m curious to know how Davies\u2019s friends reacted to their 36-year age difference. \u201cThey were all very polite. I\u2019m absolutely certain behind my back some of them were saying: \u2018What the hell?\u2019 But then they met him. He\u2019s quite extraordinary. He\u2019s Australian, and they tend to be quite tough and ahead of the game and know what they think. I was dreading what [Davies\u2019s long-term producer] Nicola Shindler might think. Then she met him and said: \u2018Oh! I get it, he\u2019s lovely.\u2019\u201d Did Smith encourage Davies to meet someone else after his death? \u201cHe\u2019d be really happy. His doctor was at another hospital when the final scan results came in saying he was going to die. She phoned me and said: \u2018I can come to the hospital tomorrow and tell him, or you can.\u2019 Actually, I was honoured to tell him. I thought it was better coming from me than anyone else. And this describes how lovely he was \u2013 when I told him, the first thing he said was: \u2018I feel sorry for you.\u2019 I found that extraordinary. Nobody knew me better than Andrew, and I think he\u2019d be sad to think of me on my own.\u201d<\/p>\n

Davies divides his time between houses in Manchester and Swansea, replicas of each other, with the same crockery and Pantone colour mugs (today\u2019s choice is yellow). He\u2019s \u201csaved like a miser\u201d, since the early 90s, when he was told it was impossible for writers to make money. This nest egg allowed him to care for Smith during the years when he didn\u2019t work, but even today he struggles to spend. \u201cI\u2019m still miserly. If I like a shirt that costs \u00a320, a voice says: \u2018Can I afford that?\u2019 I\u00a0get paid a nice wage, but I\u2019ll see something online I\u00a0like for \u00a330 and think: \u2018That\u2019s too much!\u2019\u201d In the late 90s, he went out on Canal Street every night of the week \u2013 he met Smith in Cruz 101 nightclub 10 minutes before closing \u2013 but these days he\u2019s happiest writing, or in front of the TV, and has a dread of parties. Kate Bush invited him for dinner during his first stint on Doctor Who, but he\u2019s yet to fix a date.<\/p>\n

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Davies with his partner, Oliver Cole. Photograph: Dave Benett\/Jed Cullen\/Getty Images for The National Theatre<\/p>\n

In January, Cole persuaded Davies to take his first holiday in 14 years, to New York. \u201cIt was lovely,\u201d he smiles. \u201cAlthough I\u2019m not a natural traveller, I can\u2019t bear airports, they\u2019re horrible.\u201d Last November, Cole posted a video of himself in the Tardis. Is he a Doctor Who fan? \u201cHe is, but that takes about five minutes of conversation; it\u2019s not like we sit there discussing [show antagonist] the Rani. When it became a relationship, I\u00a0reported it to the bosses at Doctor Who, in case anyone tried to say I was abusing my position by going out with a fan.\u201d At its height, the show was drawing a record 13\u00a0million viewers, which I suggest represents quite a wide dating pool of fans. \u201cAnd there\u2019s not many you\u2019d go out with,\u201d he laughs. \u201cYou know that\u2019s true!\u201d<\/p>\n

Davies with the cast of It\u2019s a Sin. Photograph: Courtesy of Russell T Davies<\/p>\n

If Davies is ribbingly dismissive of some of the show\u2019s more rabid fandom, then the feeling has become mutual. Twenty-one years after he rocketed Doctor Who to unprecedented heights, his most recent time as showrunner was polarising, with some fans criticising convoluted story arcs and anti-climactic plot resolutions. In June, his exit left the show at a perilous juncture. A Disney+ partnership with the BBC ended after two seasons of disappointing ratings, and the show is now off air while production of future series is put out to competitive tender.<\/p>\n

Was he wounded by the reaction? \u201cI\u2019m not personally wounded by that,\u201d he says. \u201cI thought it was a shame.\u00a0And maybe I wonder if I should have done something different. Except I fucking love what I did!\u201d He erupts into guffaws. \u201cI work really hard on my shows, and I\u00a0genuinely love them. I think there are waves of hatred, and maybe in a few years it\u2019ll be more appreciated. But it\u2019s appreciated by ME!\u201d What does he think it would take to save the show? \u201cPart of the problem is that there seem to be spasms and ruptures and cuts at the BBC. My worry is that there\u2019s nobody there to champion it. You need a producer saying: \u2018What about Doctor Who? What about Doctor Who? What about Doctor Who?\u2019 every single day. That\u2019s gone. In 2005, I made it exactly like a 9pm ITV drama, with a lot of the rhythms of everyday life. That concept has gone now, so maybe it\u2019ll end up as a vertical drama [clip shows designed to be watched on a smartphone] with a cliffhanger every two minutes? When it returns, it should be part of whatever the rest of telly is doing.\u201d He won\u2019t be drawn on who he should be the next Doctor. \u201cI\u2019ve made the mistake of saying so-and-so would be good, and the next thing you know, journalists are at their door.\u201d<\/p>\n

double quotation markHe spoke to Harvey Weinstein about financing. \u2018He could\u2019ve solved all our problems, but I couldn\u2019t even bear a phone call with the man. He gave me the shivers\u2019 Photograph: Harry Borden\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

For now, Davies remains a free agent, and you\u2019d be naive to try to predict his next move. After the success of Queer As Folk he immediately alienated a sub-sector of his gay audience by making a romcom, Bob and Rose, in which a gay man falls in love with a woman; when It\u2019s a Sin broke streaming records, he followed it with the not-exactly-timely miniseries about Noele Gordon\u2019s sacking from Crossroads in 1981. In 2015, when the head of BBC drama commissioning paid him a home visit following the ratings hit of his first four series of Doctor Who, Davies leveraged their interest to make his version of A Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream, starring Elaine Paige. He spoke to Harvey Weinstein about providing extra financing, but got the creeps. \u201cI should have been running after the money, he could\u2019ve solved all our problems, but I couldn\u2019t even bear a phone call with the man. He was just baleful, he gave me the shivers. My producer Faith Penhale, who was on the call, might as well not have been. She had the schedules, the budgets \u2013 and he just dismissed her.\u201d<\/p>\n

While his pedigree now affords him a degree of\u00a0creative freedom, Christmas 2017 found Davies in a position where the BBC had initially turned down Years\u00a0and Years, while It\u2019s a Sin had originally been rejected by the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 (one executive asked if Davies knew Elton John and suggested that\u00a0he\u00a0might be able to turn it into a musical). He says he\u2019s fond of a Tolstoy quote: \u201cThe revolutions have to keep\u00a0on happening.\u201d Only, \u201cI looked it up the other day\u00a0and there\u2019s no record of him saying that, so maybe I made it up!\u201d Does he feel that he kicks doors open,\u00a0only \u00a0to watch them close again? \u201cYou know those\u00a0slow pneumatic hinges that close automatically?\u00a0I\u00a0think that\u2019s what happens. They \u2018hisss\u2019 closed slowly.\u201d<\/p>\n

His ideas gestate for years \u2013 decades even \u2013 before they\u2019re committed to the page in a flurry (he first had the idea for It\u2019s a Sin more than 30 years ago; one Doctor Who script was written in the course of a weekend). Unusually, his first draft is often his final draft. Bonham Carter has said of Nolly that: \u201cIt\u2019s the only time I\u2019ve ever been involved in something that the script that I read ended up immaculately on the screen. There was not one thing cut, not one thing re-ordered.\u201d Davies recently struck upon a fresh idea, and sent the first script to his producer, only for her to remind him that he\u2019d already pitched it to her back in 2018. After the operatic trauma of Tip Toe, he\u2019s hoping to give this one a happy ending. \u201cI\u2019m very excited. These are strange days for telly, so I \u00a0hope it gets made.\u201d And if not? \u201cI\u2019ll write something else.\u201d The revolutions will keep happening.<\/p>\n

The Queerest of Folk: A Life in Television by Russell T Davies, published on 8 October by Transworld at \u00a325. To support the Guardian, order your copy from guardianbookshop.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russell T Davies is a man who prefers to look on the bright side. That time he was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":790909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-790908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=790908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/790909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}