Russell T Davies is penning new drama for Channel 4
.Russell T Davies is returning to gay dramas with a new show about the 1980s AIDS crisis.
The Queer As Folk creator’s new show, The Boys, will air on Channel 4.
The former Doctor Who showrunner has talked about his dream to pen the show. He says it is his most heavily researched work.
New gay drama about UK AIDS crisis
It will tell the story of three men across the 1980s in five episodes.
‘Ritchie, Roscoe and Colin are young lads, strangers at first, leaving home at 18 and heading off to London in 1981 with hope and ambition and joy… and walking straight into a plague that most of the world ignores,’ Channel 4 revealed.
‘Year by year, episode by episode, their lives change, as the mystery of a new virus starts as a rumor, then a threat, then a terror, and then something that binds them together in the fight.
‘It’s the story of their friends, lovers and families too, especially Jill, the girl who loves them and helps them, and galvanises them in the battles to come. Together they will endure the horror of the epidemic, the pain of rejection and the prejudices that gay men faced throughout the decade.’
Davies’ last work for Channel 4 was the three-pronged series Cucumber, Banana and Tofu. Cucumber, the ‘main’ show, followed a gay man becoming single again in his 40s. Banana featured a younger cast, while Tofu was an online only true story show.
Russell T Davies: ‘There’s a danger the story will be forgotten’
Davies has said he was writing The Boys to preserve memories from the era.
This week he said: ‘I lived through those times, and it’s taken me decades to build up to this.
‘And as time marches on, there’s a danger the story will be forgotten. So it’s an honour to write this for the ones we lost, and the ones who survived.’
Davies has also said he feels like you don’t see enough LGBTI characters on British television.
‘The first British soap to feature a gay man with HIV was last year, it was Steve in Hollyoaks,’ he said.
‘There were women like Val In Emmerdale. When they did that it was a real eye opener for me.”
