Before the world was grappling with the medical mysteries of COVID, there was a whole generation devastated by the physical and emotional toll of AIDS. When the first cases were reported back in 1981, the new epidemic gave rise to paranoia and prejudice as science didn’t have enough information to properly explain it. While the creative community was particularly hard hit, it was amongst those members that some form of artistic pushback first appeared. One of the talents who gave a voice to that epidemic was Russell T. Davies, who wrote an episode of the ITV series Children’s Ward in the early 1990s that was one of the first to tackle HIV. He subsequently followed with the groundbreaking show Queer as Folk and now premieres his take on the initial outbreak of the disease in 1980s London in the new mini-series It’s A Sin.

Hollywood was slow to react to the AIDS crisis and it took q while before works such as Philadelphia, The Normal Heart and Angeles in America made their way to the screen. What aspects of the epidemic did you want to explore with It’s A Sin?

I was very aware of those monumental pieces of work.  As a gay man of a certain age, I have probably seen everything, I am drawn to that material and I respect those pieces enormously.  I think over the 40 years I have been able to watch them and find what I have to say.  For example, nothing is more angry than The Normal Heart, I mean that piece is white-hot fury, and to think the genius of Larry Kramer writing that, practically on the spot in the mid-80s is untold genius.  But I actually found the fury of that allowed me to not be so angry, to not that let be the driving emotion of what I felt like, there’s plenty of anger in It’s a Sin. So I did take all those pieces into consideration.  Partly what hasn’t been seen is the British experience, it’s as simple as that.  It’s existed here in Britain in Soap Operas, but never quite sent to stage, and that’s a different experience to see something culturally different, helps us all a bit wiser, a bit better, I think.  So it was an honor I was glad to be the person to reach that, where I could write it simply because it is an honor to write.

As a writer likes to delve into their own truths, how close were these characters to you?

Well, I think I can write in a way, but if you were to get some sort of CSI forensic measuring device, CSI HIV and draw a line between every line of dialogue back into my past, and I think everything said on screen has been said to me or I have said to people.  But certainly, the anecdotes of gay men, the survivors, and those we lost, are all woven into this.  It wasn’t so much as I was writing, but weaving, I was weaving all these strands together, anecdotes, all I was told 30 years ago actually becoming vital plot points in this.  Because we have all been talking about it for all these years and that’s, I am not going to say that made it easy, but that is what has given us part of its success, that its success has astonished us, but I think it feels very true.

You populated your story with faces that many of us don’t recognize. Did that make it easier for us to engage in their lives?

I think that helps, I think you see them as their characters.  It’s a very young cast, it’s hard to cast a famous young cast because they are just finding their way into the industry.  I think we cast people who will now be stars.  We backed that up because it makes sense to have recognizable names in there, and I wanted to bring people in to see this, so for example we got Neil Patrick Harris in it, in a wonderful part as Henry.  And Stephen Fry is in it, actors that might be more famous in Britain, Keeley Hawes is a lead role in this one for sure, you see her in Bodyguard over there, she’s the lead in Bodyguard.  So for the next generation of actors there are various established actors, but the spotlight is really on, I call them kids, but they are not kids at all, they are beautiful young people.  And we were so lucky, because they got on so well, it’s part of my job to sit in interviews and tell you how well the cast got on and what a big family it was and you must be tired of hearing that.  It actually happened on this one and I think it’s visible, I think that energy, a vibe for want of a better word, rises off the screen and there is joy between them and a friendship between them that shines off the camera, it’s been the greatest joy to work with them.  What an education, you work with young, and they are the ones teaching you, it’s been lovely.

You title the show It’s a Sin, which has a bit of a religious connotation to it. How did you play with that in regard to these people just trying to love and be happy?

Absolutely yes, the whole notion of sin is ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous.  I like the fact that it hangs over the entire cast like a judgement.  Because this is about a genre, but a bunch of gay men in their flat and their friends having a wonderful time, there is a lot of life and laughter and color and sexiness. And over that there is this cloud which is the virus and over the course of the series gets closer and closer and closer.  But the title does that, the title is a judgement and sometimes it’s funny, but sometimes there’s this real judgment.  There are people to this day who say that that virus is a judgment from God and shame on them, that is the sin.

I love that line in the show where the flatmates want to buy their place for 42,000 pounds. I am thinking, if you don’t, I will.

 (Laugh). That was built inside an old primary school or something, (laughs) it’s not there anymore.  It has people in London fainting that you can buy a flat, anywhere for 42,000 dollars, let alone London, it’s a real figure, that’s what it would have cost.