The manner in which RTD writes the different ways that the characters need their chosen family elevates the show into a way that strikes a chord with me in the way that queer programming hasn’t really managed to before, and I would attest a lot of this to the potentially divisive position has on having his queer characters played by queer actors. For me, this choice brings out the best in his cast; bringing a level of believability and authenticity that straight actors can’t necessarily bring to the scene. When this cast are bouncing off each other or crying on each other’s shoulders, I believe the emotion not only from the character’s perspective but by knowing that all that cast have a chosen family of their own that they’re channeling into their performances it makes every scene the gut punch of some of the scenes that little bit harder.
a Sin arrived complete with ready-made culture row, creator Russell T Davies having done a little stoking by saying heâd like gay men to be played by gay actors. Cue huffing in predictable quarters, chiefly along these lines: would Hannibal Lecter need to then be played by a convicted cannibal? An argument I normally like to consign to the category âtechnically valid, but you might want to grow up a bit and have a wee word with yourselvesâ. And to let this particular tower of babble overshadow any of the subsequent creation would indeed be a sin.
It is, on the evidence of the first episode (of five), mainly a joyous, gleeful, rambunctious watch, shot through with historical experience and period perfection, even if Manchesterâs Clampdown Records is, last time I looked, rather far from Savile Row. So Ritchie, Roscoe, Welsh Colin and Glaswegian Gloria, all, to a greater or far lesser extent, flamboyant and fleeing homes mired in stultifying early 80s orthodoxy and