INTERVIEW WITH JACKSON CONNOR, WHO PLAYS GEORGE GOSS, AND JOSEPH EVANS, WHO PLAYS SAUL GOSS

How would you describe Tip Toe? 

JC: It’s an exciting, brand-new Channel 4 drama written by Russell T Davies, exploring themes affecting the LGBTQ+ community in modern society. It explores how words can become weapons. The show focusses on two next door neighbours, Leo Struthers and Clive Goss, played by Alan Cumming and David Morrissey, and how both of their very different cultures collide.

How do George and Saul, Clive’s sons, fit into the story?

JE: We’re brothers in the show. I’m Saul, Jackson is George. They live in a pretty normal, suburban house in Manchester. Their dad, Clive, played by David Morrissey is an electrician. The family themselves are living quite isolated lives. Saul’s a grown-up son, still living at home. George is college age, working out what he wants to do with his life. It seems like everyone in the family has a secret. That’s how we arrive on the Goss family. There are a quite a lot of secrets cramped under one roof. Let the drama begin.

Who is Clive Goss?

JE: The relationship between the boys and their father is quite complicated. They have secrets from each other. But there are attempts to reach each other within the series at numerous stages. The relationship is fractious. It’s almost there but never quite reaching any kind of workable intimacy that might go any way to helping any of them. The whole thing with Russell T Davies’ writing is humanising characters, making people real. He’s never going to say, ‘this person is a bad person.’ The story leaves you with a load of questions, which it should do. These are very nuanced issues that the show is talking about, that demand nuanced approaches. And we’re living in a time that doesn’t welcome nuance. Tip Toe is like a rallying cry for nuance. 

JC: George is 16. He sees his dad as what a man is supposed to be. That’s what he’s grown up with. As he’s getting older and having new experiences, meeting new people and all these things he sees online are influencing him, it’s a very confusing time for him. He doesn’t really have anyone to talk to and struggles with communicating with his dad, although Clive tries, there isn’t much connection between them. They both love each other but don’t know how to express it. 

What do the boys make of their next-door neighbour, Leo Struthers?

JE: Saul doesn’t really have much of a relationship with Leo before he comes to work at Leo’s bar, Spit and Polish, helping his dad as an electrician. I think it said in the script that Leo has come round to the Goss’s house once in fourteen years before the start of the series. This is not a community led street. Neighbours don’t have a relationship with one another. This is just the guy who lives next door, which makes the story all the more tragic, in a way. When Saul sees the inside of Spit and Polish he sees this whole new world, which I think he is genuinely quite intrigued, even quite excited by. He just loves people, so he enjoys this new community, the vibrancy of it all. They’re just a bunch of great new people. Because of this, Leo becomes slightly more than just the guy next door.

JC: Similarly to Saul’s character, George hasn’t really had anything to do with Leo in the beginning. As the story moves forward, they become more intertwined. I think Leo initially terrifies him as suddenly, there is this person in such close proximity to his family that learns George’s secret, that he’s gay. But then as the story progresses, I think he also gets to this point where he’s very curious. He sees Leo as what his life could be if he was living openly and honestly about himself. Whilst that is amazing to him while he’s alone or with newfound friends, once he’s back in his family home next door and he’s surrounded by this fractious family dynamic, he shuts down again. He is terrified about how his family would react, especially his dad. It’s scary and very lonely for him.

How excited were you both to work on a new Russell T Davies drama?

JE: It seems obvious to say it, but the main thing for me with Russell is that the writing is just amazing. Even reading the audition sides, I knew it was all there. I know straight away who Saul is, in all his beautiful human depth. He’s created this incredible new, whole community, so you just slot into it. So long as you play it with your heart, it will read. You have an instant trust with the script, then with the character. I’m in. He knows exactly how to piece a jigsaw together. We just have to play our part in it.

This is the first time in a long time Russell has taken the temperature of ‘straight culture’, if you like…

JE: Yes, and it’s done with humanity. Russell will never sneer at someone or something. He understands humanity. He says himself, and you see it in the script, that Clive is a man under a lot of pressure. These are people doing the best they can with the tools they’ve got, trying to live the best way they know how. To create a useful rallying cry for nuance you have to create useful human beings. There’s so much compassion in the writing, which is why it’s such a joy to be a part of it. So while Saul is representative of that person who is now, in the digital age, entirely able to commodify the way they look, what’s interesting and human about him is that he feels somehow the need to keep that secret from his family. I understood straight away from the script that there needs to be a difference between who he is online and who he is with his family. We hold many differences within ourselves. That’s part of being a human being. That’s a big part of this story. Which version of yourself are you, depending on which situation you are in.

Jackson, did you see echoes of Nathan Maloney from Queer as Folk in George Goss? 

JC: They are similar ages. And on the surface they are similar stories. I suppose you could make that analogy of George being that Nathan character during the digital age, but I think they are also very deeply different people. Obviously, I love Queer as Folk, it’s an incredible show and I actually used Nathan as a reference for the accent for George. But on a deeper level, Nathan is this very outspoken, quite proud gay character who is very secure in who he is, even in a school setting. He’s got a very different relationship with his family than George has. George has grown up with a very particular idea of what a man should be. Then ideas come in and challenge that. On a deeper level they are two very different characters. And I think a lot of that comes from it being the digital age and everything we see in the media and on social media and the kind of damage that it can do to a young person’s mental health and self-image. We see these perfect depictions of people online when it is far from the truth. That is affecting him as well as it does for countless young people.

What does the drama tell us about modern masculinity?

JC: That’s a really tough question. Masculinity as a word does not have to be inherently negative. But when it’s fuelled by factions of social media and certain stories in the news it can be pushed towards toxicity. That results in the whole idea of the manosphere. What it is to be a man. What you have to do to be a man. Obviously nothing is that simple. Masculinity can be a beautiful thing. There are so many examples of beautiful masculinity in the LGBTQ+ community. 

JE: Jackson’s completely right. I don‘t think this series is there to say, this is the answer. I think it’s there to say it’s a complicated issue and let’s look at this with the compassion and humanity that we need to. There’s a lot of noise around masculinity, especially around the perceived pressures around what it might mean to be a man in today’s society. So rather than then further pressuring the man, maybe it’s more helpful to say what are those pressures, how do we investigate where they come from and how we might help as a society to come through those pressures. Otherwise we’re just further stoking the divisions. That’s exactly what Russell is saying with this show. Division creates fear, and further entrenchment in things. That’s not helpful. There’s a lot of talk about it at the moment because I think it’s reached a point where there needs to be a lot of talk about it. Hopefully people will have a more nuanced discussion after seeing this show and all the different types of masculinity on display, from George to Saul to Clive to Leo, it’s a whole range. How do we as a community reach each other?

How do you feel audiences will react to Tip Toe?

JC: There’s always going to be that group of people that don’t like what you do but that is what art is there to do – to push boundaries, to ask questions, to sometimes make people feel deeply uncomfortable. It really makes you look inwards, which is the great thing about the writing. Russell has done the very hard part for us, so we get to really sit in our characters and push work that is going to make people think. When I first got the audition, I read that it was a Russell show, and thought, this is huge. Then I read it and thought, this is me, if I don’t get this role then I’m doing something wrong (laughs). When you read it you think, wow, we have a big job to do here with a lot of responsibility, especially for a lot of young gay kids, how they perceive George and what they’re going to take from him. I think it will shock people, but I think that’s what it needs to do. 

JE: I remember reading the last episode, putting it down and going, phew, that is a lot. The whole series is a flag in the ground. It’s an urgent plea. It will make people feel uncomfortable, feel a lot of complicated, abstract things that will start a lot of conversations. A show like this is effective when people have conversations as a result of it. Some of them will be loud, I’m sure. That’s unavoidable, because it’s responding urgently to the time it was written in and you get a real sense of that urgency. 

JC: I’m immensely proud of it, for me it’s been like a dream coming true getting to work with some of the most incredible people in the business. We’ve all taken on the responsibility of these characters. We've all felt that. I think it will speak to a whole range of people, not just the LGBTQ+ community. It’s so powerful. 

Who would you most want to watch it? 

JC: Of course I want people like George to see it, to see a life they could lead if they started to accept themselves and live openly. 

JE: It’s a whole panoply of people and there is something for us all to see in this. In these families and communities shown. I hope the people who do see it, they will see it with the kind of openness it was made with. It’s an amazing, powerful and compassionate piece of work, containing a real opportunity for us to reach out to each other within it. Russell makes everything universal.