Davies Praises Starz Nerve for Tip Toe US Release
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- Russell T. Davies praised Starz for having the 'nerve' to release his LGBTQ thriller Tip Toe in the U.S. and Canada despite President Trump's 'hatred, bile and anger about minorities'
- Tip Toe was produced without any American money, and Davies said the creators 'kind of imagined it would never get shown' in the U.S., making the Starz pickup a surprise
- Starz scored North American rights to the Channel 4 limited series last month, with network president Alison Hoffman calling it 'a gripping and deeply affecting series that speaks directly to the cultural tensions and anxieties shaping modern life'
- The series stars Alan Cumming as Manchester gay bar owner Leo Struthers and David Morrissey as electrician neighbor Clive Goss, whose feud turns deadly amid online conspiracy theories and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric
- Davies commended Starz for nerve 'in a world where everyone, well governments are trying to censor broadcasters,' arguing the show 'addresses many of the problems that come when the President of the free world talks with hatred, bile and anger about minorities'
Why it matters: Starz's pickup puts a British-made, un-American-financed LGBTQ thriller into the largest English-language TV market during an administration Davies explicitly frames as hostile to minorities. The show's plot — anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and online conspiracy theories fueling real-world violence — lands differently when its creator publicly casts the U.S. release as an act of resistance against government-driven censorship.
