Russell T Davies discusses memoir, Queer as Folk and UK TV pressures

Screenwriter Russell T Davies has discussed his memoir and television career in a wide-ranging interview, reflecting on his breakthrough with Queer as Folk, his writing process and the pressures facing British public service broadcasting.

Davies, whose credits include Doctor Who, It's a Sin, Years and Years and the recent Channel 4 drama Tiptoe, said his career before Queer as Folk was spent writing gay characters into soap operas as subplots. He recalled creating a lesbian vicar, a bisexual groom with his gay best man, and schoolboys coming out of the closet. A Channel 4 executive, Katrina McKenzie, told him he wrote those stories better than anything else and encouraged him to bring a gay-led drama to the channel. Queer as Folk changed his life and opened doors ever since, he said.

He admitted he did not expect the show to be a hit. It was moved from 9pm to 10pm and then to 10.30pm. He and producer Nicola Shindler thought it would be watched by "an old man and a dog and a drag queen". But the ratings were strong, and Channel 4 research suggested the audience was double the reported figure because people were watching secretly in their bedrooms.

The interview used a scene from Tiptoe, featuring Alan Cumming as Leo and Paul Rees as Melba, to discuss how Davies writes explicitly. He said the scene lays out the show's agenda: creeping homophobia fuelled by an online voice. Davies said he likes being bold and believes drama must state its purpose because it competes with cop shows, detectives, ghosts, vampires and thrillers. Writing remains hard, he added, but dialogue flows easily for him and he knows what he wants from a scene.

Davies also raised concerns about Channel 4's financial pressures and job losses. He said he was alarmed by the apparent merger of drama and comedy commissioning into one role, especially for comedy. A comedy commissioner spends years following comedians, stand-ups and people working on YouTube, and those distinct voices need help, he said. He was surprised by the merger.

He said he had seen industry crises before, with budgets disappearing and everything changing, but people soldier on. Digital streaming has changed the "receptacles", he said, but his job is still sitting at home, typing a story and thinking of speeches and characters. Broadcasters still need to make noise, and if Channel 4 makes less noise, that is hard, he said.

On the future of public service broadcasting, Davies suggested the iPlayer is the "great sleeping dog of the British industry" with millions of programmes, but it is not advertised enough. He recalled speaking to a young person in their early 20s who thought the iPlayer required an iPhone. He found that alarming and said the iPlayer needs to get its message out. He said he would happily see his Channel 4 programmes on the iPlayer, and noted that his show Years and Years is hard to find now.