Is russell t davies gay
Russell T Davies: Straight actors should not play male lover characters
Acclaimed TV writer Russell T Davies has said that straight actors should not play gay characters.
Best known for his function on Queer As Folk and Doctor Who, Davies is due to come back to the screen with the much anticipated recent Channel 4 drama It's A Sin, which explores the HIV crisis in London in the 1980s.
Years and Years singer Olly Alexander, who is openly gay, stars in the lead role as a promiscuous aspiring actor.
There has been much debate in recent years over whether straight actors should portray gay characters.
Speaking to the Radio Times, Davies compared a straight actor playing a gay character to black face.
He said: "I'm not being woke about this... but I experience strongly that if I cast someone in a story, I am casting them to act as a lover, or an enemy, or someone on drugs or a criminal or a saint... they are NOT there to 'act gay' because 'acting gay' is a bunch of codes for a performance.
"It's about authenticity, the taste of 2020.
"You wouldn't cast someone able-bodied and put them in a wheelchair, you wouldn't dark someone up. Authenticity is leading us to joyous places."
High-profi
Television producer and screen writer
1999
Queer as Folk broadcast
“Living as a gay man is a political act’
Russell T Davies
Welshman Russell T Davies is a same-sex attracted screenwriting icon. In 1998 he wrote a drama series for UK TV Channel 4. It was about a group of friends in Manchester’s same-sex attracted scene. Before this programme, Gay TV characters were usually in small roles. He wanted the lgbtq+ characters at the centre of the story. He wanted to champion acceptance of LGBT+ people.
Channel 4’s decision to make Gender non-conforming as Folk was revolutionary and brave. At the time a British Social Attitudes survey revealed that 49 per cent of British people thought gay relationships were either “always wrong” or “mostly untrue. Section 28 had been in force for over ten years. The age of consent was unequal. There were no civil partnerships and no similar sex marriage. Davies wanted to show this inequality.
The title of the series comes from a dialect expression from some parts of Northern England, ‘there’s nowt so queer as folk’, meaning ‘there’s nothing as strange as people’.
Queer as Folk was sexy and fun. It wasn’t a lecture. It was about family and friends. It was written with care and from the
‘Doctor Who’ Is Unapologetically Lgbtq+ in 2024, Thanks to Russell T. Davies
Summary
- Doctor Who thrives on convert and the return of Russell T. Davies has brought a fresh entry point for new fans to join in on the "cosmic joyride."
- Davies is leaning into LGBTQ+ themes in the show, celebrating queerness naturally as a reflection of the welcoming world of 2024.
- The highly anticipated episodes "Boom" and "Rogue" will deliver tough sci-fi grit and a Bridgerton-style regency adventure, says Davies.
Having first slap the airwaves in 1963, Doctor Whohas gone through change innumerable times in the past 60 years. So much so that change is one of the very cornerstones of the franchise. That organism said, as we learned in the 60th anniversary specials, sometimes things possess a way of coming back around just when they’re needed. Writer, showrunner, and executive producer Russell T. Davies, responsible for having revived the franchise in 2005 and turning it into a global phenomenon, has returned along with this new era.
Much like he did in 2005, Davies has created a new entry direct for Doctor Who fans with a thrilling brand-new doctor/companion duo. Ahead of the new season,
Russell T Davies is one of the first major television dramatists to have been raised in an age culturally dominated by the medium. His embracing of television as both a means of amusement and a necessary form of dramatic expression has guided his work, along with his signature energy and underlying confidence in television's adaptability and significance.
Born simply Russell Davies (the 'T' was added to avoid confusion with another writer and broadcaster of the same name) in Swansea in 1963, he spent much of his preliminary childhood watching television and creating his own stories, often in the create of cartoon strips. He continued to draw while studying English Literature at Oxford University, now for student magazines. Leaving university in 1984, he gravitated to television, initially as a cartoonist for Children's BBC. His time on the magazine programme Why Don't You? (BBC, 1973-94) saw him graduating to the role of production assistant. By 1990 he was producer of the show, steering it further toward drama and away from its traditional mix of recipes and 'makes'.
Subsequently, he wrote the well-received children's fantasy serial Dark Season (BBC, 1991), followed by Cent Design & LivingInterview TextNick Levine When it comes to putting queer characters on screen, Russell T Davies is a genuine pioneer. Since he created the groundbreaking gay drama Queer as Folk in 1999, the Swansea-born writer has consistently elevated LGBTQ representation in mainstream TV. During his five-year tenure as Doctor Who showrunner, he introduced the show’s first omnisexual character, Captain Jack Harkness, then launched super-queer spin-off series Torchwood. Then in 2015, he created the ambitious sister series Cucumber and Banana, which followed the lives of a varied organization of LGBTQ characters living in Manchester. Now he’s written It’s A Sin, a vibrant and deeply moving five-part series rooted in the 80s Aids crisis. Beginning in 1981, it tracks the disease’s tragic progress through the eyes of a close-knit friendship group living in a London flat they ring the “Pink Palace”. As gay mates Ritchie (Olly Alexand
It’s A Sin Originator Russell T Davies: “Cast Gay as Gay”
Russell T Davies sits down with Nick Levine to converse his new series rooted in the 80s Aids crisis, LGBTQ representation on screen and direct actors playing queer characters