Russell T Davies is perhaps the first writer whose name and face I ever committed to memory. His name and initials emblazoned in the title sequence of the 2005 Doctor Who revival, Davies had me returning to the television every Saturday evening, my attention captivated by the unfolding of his plots, thrilled by his stories of far away worlds and alien creatures, always dreading the words “To be Continued” that would signal the start of a week-long wait to find out what happened next. 

Within the same timeframe I had become accustomed to waiting before being able to witness the continuation of Davies’ stories, I contributed to the 6.5 million viewers who watched his latest project It’s A Sin in its entirety, a record breaking statistic for Channel 4 who declared the show their “most binged new series ever.” Sitting down to watch with flatmates who were one episode ahead, I was adamant that I would be able to work out what was going on and that they could pick up from where they left off. Their insistence that I start from the beginning was incredibly justified when considering the scope of Davies’ project, an account and remembrance of the lives and loves of gay men in London 1981, the early years of the British AIDS Epidemic. 

 It’s A Sin tells the story of queer culture and of the gay men whose lives intersected in pubs, clubs and parties, their relationships with one another and of the dreams and passions that brought them to the capital. At the centre of the miniseries are flatmates Ritchie (Ollie Alexander), Roscoe (Omari Douglas), Colin (Callum Scott Howells), and Ash (Nathanial Curtis), their casting described in Attitude as “a sea of unforgettable gay men played by gay men.”  The fifth flatmate is a character inspired directly by Davies’ childhood, with Jill (Lydia West) depicting the original owner of the “Pink Palace” apartment shared by the principle characters. Of Jill, Davies says she “met the crisis head on” and that “she held the hands of so many men. She lost them, and remembered them, and somehow kept going” It is Jill’s life and stories, alongside those of Davies from which the narrative of It’s A Sin is crafted; a celebration of the lives lived and loved.

It is this notion of memory through storytelling that is so striking and one Davies has spoken openly about in interviews and articles relating to his series, that: “The stigma and fear of AIDS was so great that a family could go through the funeral, the wake and then decades of mourning without saying what really happened”. Within the first 10 minutes of his second episode Davies addresses the level of misinformation and misunderstanding surrounding the epidemic in a monologue delivered by Ritchie, and it is the group’s gradual realisation of the threat posed by AIDS to the health and lives of those around them that is so central to Davies’ depiction of the attitudes and feelings. It’s A Sin’s illustration of the scope of AIDS and of the different, deeply human responses to an epidemic that so disproportionally impacted the lives of gay young men reflects the importance of engaging with individual perspective and lived experience when educating ourselves and considering the impacts of the crisis, both personal and cultural of the last forty years. 

This year’s theme for LGBTQ+ History Month Scotland is ‘Unsung: Reveal Unheard Stories of LGBTQ+ Life”. At the centre of It’s A Sin are stories of lives, some of which are being told for the first time, and despite the accounts of death and loss, the series is defiant in its conscious remembrance of life and laughter. Davies is revealing unheard stories, they are the stories of his youth, of his friends, and most importantly of the young men lost in the AIDS epidemic. It’s A Sin never shifts its focus from relationship, how the lives of individuals interact and intertwine with each other and within their communities. To value our time with the people closest to us and to hold onto connection is central to Davies exploration of relationship, one exemplified in this masterpiece, pulled together from memory, from love and from friendship.