Each week Joe and Terry discuss Starz’s import of Channel 4’s Tip Toe, alternating between our respective sites.
Spoilers follow for Episode 1
JOE
Terry, as soon as I heard about Tip Toe, I was immediately interested. I’ve been following writer/creator Russell T Davies since the original Queer as Folk (he’s gone on to do prestige and populous television alike, including Doctor Who; It’s A Sin; Years and Years; A Very English Scandal, etc)
You basically know that with a Davies text, it’s going to be wry, topical, intelligent, and (likely) confronting. And I would say all of those descriptors apply to this first episode of Tip Toe.
We’re thrust into the uncomfortable dynamics between neighbours Leo Struthers (Alan Cumming) and Clive Goss (David Morrissey) from the very first scene (we’ll circle back to the cold open and the ten days framing device in a bit).
Leo debuts on screen in salmon boxer briefs, asking to use Clive’s phone so he can call his straight friend Stephanie (Elizabeth Berrington). Leo has been locked out of his house after a robbery following a one-night stand. While Leo waits for Stephanie and his spare key, Clive refuses to allow him to wait inside his home – in part because the 59 year old has already oogled Clive’s 25 year old half-naked older son, Saul (Joseph Evans), but also because Clive is uncomfortable with Leo being alone with his youngest, 16 year old George (Jackson Connor).
So far, so cringe.
We then follow Leo to work at his Manchester gay bar, where he’s contending with electrical shortages, staff members calling in sick, and a trans employee Zee (Iz Hesketh) who is sleeping at the club because the house she used to live in now hosts a group of transphobic Polish men who are threatening to kill her.
As to be expected for a premiere, there’s a lot of character introductions and table setting in this first episode, but it immediately becomes clear how furiously political Tip Toe is. This really comes to the forefront via the character of Melba (Paul Rhys), a drag queen/barfly celebrating a birthday who goes on an extended tirade in the third act about how dangerously unsafe it is to be queer in 2026.
It’s an incredibly powerful monologue because Melba is saying the quiet part out loud. Trump has made it permissible for (mostly) men on the internet to espouse hatred of queer people and even though Leo would love to hang up his activism hat (he argues he’s already marched and the younger generation can take over), Melba issues a healthy dose of reality when they remind Leo that he employs 45 staff, most of whom are on the front lines for intolerance, bigotry, and, yes, the hate that is a commonplace feature of contemporary queer life.
This could all play very heavy handed, but there’s a ring of authenticity to it that it becomes a kind of siren call (Melba, and by extension Davies, are basically screaming for people to pay attention to what’s actually going on in the world). By this point in the episode, Zee’s situation has already necessitated a brazen mid-day heist to procure all of her belongings and, sure, this is played mostly for laughs as the car of queer people, brandishing a 22 gun no less, leave the Polish crew huffing and puffing in the streets.
But the capacity for violence and the impending threat looms large over the series. Tip Toe literally opens with Leo’s body hanging from a streetlamp, so we know that the next four episodes will reveal the truth about who murdered him and why. I’m sure it won’t be as cut and dry as it appears, but the easy initial ready is that it’s the byproduct of the uneasy detente between Leo and Clive. The former, alarmingly, now has access to Leo’s house thanks to a safe lock Clive had made. And he clearly doesn’t approve of Leo’s lifestyle…
I’d say that speculating is half the fun, Terry, but I already feel like this series is going to give an ulcer.
Over to you: what are your initial impressions of the show? Are you excited to see Cumming in a meaty role like this? Are you scared of what David Morrisey’s Clive seems capable of? And how much did you love the episode-ending montage of everyone fapping it to their various perversions, set to none other than “Unholy” by Sam Smith feat. Kim Petras? (A bop back in 2023; still a bop in 2026).
TERRY
I’m in the same boat as you, Joe. My introduction to Russell T Davies came partially through Doctor Who, but also its criminally underseen spinoff Torchwood, which melded the science fiction of Doctor Who with queer representation.
Sure, I’d heard of Queer as Folk (moreso thanks to the American version because UK shows in the late 90s/early aughts weren’t readily available in the states…or at least not in the midwest) but it wasn’t until I fell in love with Torchwood that I learned of Davies and began eagerly following his work.
You mentioned that, because this is the first episode, it has to do a lot of character work and Joe I felt like I was in the hands of a master in the opening sequence. The economy of storytelling in these two opening scenes (ignoring the cold open) had me giddy at the narrative structure.
Immediately, we know the tense situation between Clive and Leo, the nosy neighbor Bridget (Ania Marson) – of course her name is Bridget, by the way – gossip about Clive and infidelity, Leo’s HIV status via the drug Bictegravir…so much is established so quickly.
I suppose in British TV, you kind of have to be able to write expository scenes that do so much because, unlike American television, the seasons/series are usually much shorter. Less filler. Regardless, I loved this opening sequence.
But what I think this episode accomplished exceedingly well is establishing the theme of gossip that, I’m going to hazard a guess, is going to lead to that cold open death. In addition to Bridget (in America, the gossipy neighbor’s name would be Barbara), but right away Leo also lies about why he’s outside, only to be caught by Cive’s wife Marie (Pooky Quesnel), who shares the hot goss about Leo’s gentleman caller.
The gossip continues, though, as Stephanie tells Leo that she’s surprised Marie and Clive are together after the…you know. Leo does not know, so Steph follows up with a revelation about Clive’s infidelity. It’s stated as fact, but after Clive and Leo’s tense argument (and prelude to the fapping montage), I’m not sure it actually happened.
It’s left uncertain, as Clive noticeably shifts in his seat before asking Leo what he meant about sleeping around. I have a feeling that that bit of gossip might not actually be true. Or it could be more complicated than that.
I bring up gossip as a theme because of how the episode ends. You’re absolutely right that when a show tells us where it’s going, some of the fun comes from guessing how the players are positioned for the gruesome end.
The Sam Smith montage clarifies that young George likes his porn anime and bara. It’s an important distinction, too, because it differs from the more typical anime genre of yaoi (or BL/boy love) that is more marketed to women than men. Bara is about gruff, big, burly “masc” dudes. Which tells us a bit more about George (speaking of that economy of storytelling). After an unsuccessful fapping session, both Leo and George pop onto Grindr and the episode ends with them seeing each other.
Oh fuck, indeed.
Joe, I think we’re going to watch the disintegration of Clive’s family and Clive is going to blame it on Leo. And I have a feeling it’s going to involve Clive finding out about George’s desires and deciding that, somehow, it’s Leo’s fault. Because of gossip, not fact.
The fapping sequence is interesting on its own, too, in that it tells us what turns the entire main cast on. Marie has kicked Clive to the sofa for some unknown reason, then immediately hides in her sexy queer audiobook. Leo watches fetish porn with feet-sniffing and leather daddies. George, of course, scrolls through bara images. Saul, kind of surprisingly* (but not really) operates as a cam boy, racking in the tips because of his big “monster”.
*I say surprisingly because that’s a relatively compact house…I know there’s a lock on the door, but Saul’s playing with a difficult balancing act.
Finally, there’s the most disturbing visual: that of Clive sitting on the couch, watching the 2026 equivalent of Faces of Death. He scrolls through a social media account of “real deaths”, and while he’s the only one not masturbating, the way the camera focuses on his intense gaze and his hyper-focus, he might as well have been.
A lot has been crammed into 45 minutes, Joe! I’d like to get your opinions on the way the episode ends, and the little bits of micro-aggression from Clive towards Leo. Did the Sleeping with the Enemy changes in Leo’s house chill you? Would you have let Clive have your keys?? And will the way Leo embellishes his stories (the gnome with a fishing rod is funny) end up coming back to bite him? Finally, you mentioned the “cringe” of the opening scene, so I’m curious how the mix between the comedy and the intense drama works for you?
JOE
I’ll confess that cringe (or awkward) comedy can be really touch and go for me, so in addition to waiting for the shoe to drop on some of these character secrets, the balance between drama and (cringe) comedy was the big reason I mentioned an ulcer!
It is good, though, to be clear. That’s why I’m so anxious! The stakes feel so high already, particularly between Clive and Leo, who clearly would never spend time around the other if they weren’t forced to live next to each other. And that’s part of what makes this so delicious, right? There’s no escaping someone that you practically share a wall with, even if the lives you live are miles apart.
Let’s tackle the tweaked items in Leo’s home, because the immediate insinuation is that these were moved by Clive. Perhaps that will prove to be a red herring, but it’s likely just that Clive is curious about who Leo is and went snooping through his medicine cabinet. But even if it’s as “innocuous” as that, there’s still something so incredibly uncomfortable about the idea of Clive wandering through Leo’s home when he’s not there and without permission. It’s already a violation when he simply enters without knocking or ringing the bell (cue the passive aggressive response when Leo asks him to), but even just the appearance of the lock safe on the table feels like a violation.
Morrissey is doing a great job with making this character slightly dangerous, aggressive, and unpredictable. These are all qualities that freak me the fuck out, Terry. What I love about this role and performance, though, is that you can’t say that Clive is misbehaving. Sure, he seems like a garden variety homophobe, and it’s incredibly satisfying when Leo goes off on Clive about how straight people essentially demanded queer people adopt pronouns and now complain that we’ve forced them into using them*. It’s a great ‘slow clap’ kind of moment.
*Sidebar: I love how Leo himself is a hypocrite about this, because earlier in the episode he complained about using “they/them” for a staff member, leaning into his ageism
I’m already so excited and impressed with how complex, nuanced, and flawed these characters are. It would be easy for Davies to make Leo, our protagonist, an unvarnished progressive warrior. But that’s kinda uninteresting and, if we’re being honest, unrealistic (I know a lot of well-meaning queer people who get shit wrong; who don’t support the whole LGBTQIA umbrella; whose politics are progressive so long as their personal freedoms don’t have to be compromised).
Tip Toe feels very real to me, Terry. It’s uncomfortably grounded in real life murky morals, and I can’t wait to see how it develops as all of these interconnected threads start to pull and tease each other. So yes, shit like Leo embellishing his stories is ABSOLUTELY going to fuck him over later. So will that gaffe where he inferred that Clive had committed adultery (for the record: I’m with you. I don’t think that gossip is correct, though the martial bed between Clive and Marie is definitely chilly).
Back to you. Are you excited to see how the olive branch Leo extends to Clive in the form of electrical work at the club pays off (Clive in a gay bar? Oh dear). Will the Poles come back? And were there other political messages (obvious or coded) that spoke to you as a queer person in 2026? (The drag queen who hustled out of the club when she saw a straight student filled me with dread, while Melba’s assertion that Leo’s mere existence is a political act was a discerning – and bleak – reality in this, the darkest timeline we’re living through).
TERRY
I’m glad we’re on the same page with the adultery gossip. But your comment that Clive might just be curious about his neighbor has me thinking that maybe it’s not Clive, but George. The reason I’m wondering is because of the things that are moved. A wine glass has been moved (Check the wine, Leo!) and the HIV drugs have been touched. I think it’s a gayby who suddenly has access to not only an adult’s house, but a gay adult’s house. He’d be naturally curious; especially with the home life as shitty as it is.
But that’s just complete conjecture.
The thing about this episode (and I’m assuming the series) is the devilish glee of awkwardness tempered by the knowledge that below the fun and games lies death (murder?). So, yes…I am excited to see how Clive reacts to Spit & Polish – what a name – and its workers who are a rainbow of the LGTBQ+ community. That’s going to be awkwardly funny, but I also have my eyes on where this show is ultimately heading and it makes me nervous.
As for the other political messages, I think we’ve covered them, or at least the ones I noticed. But I am glad you brought up the drag queen teacher. That’s a double whammy of the queen’s secret life but also the fact that certain parts of the country are laser-focused on drag queens. The one thing that kind of jumped out at me, though, is Leo’s assertion to let the youths carry on the protest. It’s a statement that reeks of privilege, simply because, yes, at pushing-60, Leo has undoubtedly marched, protested, etc. but we unfortunately do not have the luxury to just sit back and hope the younger generation will fix things.
This is touched on when the staff make a daring heist to save Zee from her living situation and Leo makes a comment that her room is a box. Judy tells him that It’s their generation that did this to them. Now I’m not equating queer perseverance with boomers ruining the housing market, but the fact remains that the world Leo is leaving the younger generation is pretty fucked. And as horrible as it is to think, Leo’s fight isn’t over.
Join us next week when we go to Gayly Dreadful to tackle Episode 2!
Tip Toe airs Fridays on Starz
