Russell T Davies on It’s A Sin: ‘We were all Aids deniers – then it got real’

(FASTNEWS | COLOMBO) –   For Queer As Folk and Doctor Who writer Russell T Davies, being gay in the 1980s meant enjoying new freedoms while also living in fear of Aids. He has now poured those experiences into his latest TV drama.

When 18-year-old Davies went to Oxford University in 1981, some friends from back home in south Wales moved to London to be actors.

As he studied English in the echoing halls of Worcester College, they had non-stop house parties in the Pink Palace. They had more fun.

“A lot of my friends from our local youth theatre in Swansea went off to become actors, lived in a flat called the Pink Palace, had parties night and day,” Davies recalls.

“So on a lot of weekends, I used to disappear and visit the Pink Palace. Sit on that train, and get the train back with a hangover.”

Davies is now one of the UK’s best-loved TV dramatists, thanks to shows like Queer As Folk, Doctor Who, Cucumber, A Very English Scandal and Years and Years.

But he remembers the parties, the Pink Palace and the people who lived there fondly. So fondly that he has put them at the heart of his new Channel 4 show.