INTERVIEW WITH PETER HOAR, DIRECTOR AND EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

How did Russell T Davies first explain Tip Toe to you?

I’d already worked with Russell on It’s A Sin, Doctor Who and Nolly. A script arrived with an email saying “This is yours if you want it. Read it and let me know what you think.” I read episode one, which was all that existed at that point, hot off the press and was deeply affected by it. I’d never had a Russell script that had this urgency, this nowness to it. Russell had never written this way before, starting with the end. The feeling was very Russell though. The scripts then steadily arrived, about a month apart. The story unravels and you can’t help thinking that maybe it isn’t the thing you thought it would be. It’s an honest, truthful and real story about where we are now. There is no safety net when you write about now. That’s why it is so visceral. It made us race to get it out, too. This is happening right now. It’s so current it’s painful. 

It literally does not shy away from anything…

No. I imagine a lot of people will be unhappy about it. “This isn’t us.” But what is ‘us’ anymore? It’s kind of interesting that in a world where queer people have never been more visible, we are no more able to keep each other safe than we were before. We’re out there. We’re open. It’s singing and dancing in the streets. But are we really looking out for each other? It’s all to do with technology, too. It starts with the loss of a laptop and then it is a litany of errors. A lot of that is because of this very modern condition, that we deliberately don’t listen to others. We dig our heels in. We refuse to capitulate. We say, “this is not who I am”. Russell pitched it to me as a thriller and I was intrigued by that. So it’s dangerous. My director’s job is to direct the script. You shouldn’t know that I am there.

What do you feel it says about where we are in Queer Culture in 2026? Where have we moved since Queer as Folk? 

When Russell made Queer as Folk, he didn’t want to tell a story about HIV/Aids, even though we were still in the thick of it. He wanted the story about gay life, of joy and visibility, the things we never saw on television. By It’s A Sin, he was ready to tell it. Tip Toe is about now, though it isn’t about the past. What I think is so great about it, is that he hasn’t taken a side. It’s about a time when there is a lot of finger-pointing across the board. There is no singular truth. And nobody else would write this. Russell almost had to do it. I did a show called Boots recently, which I was incredibly proud of. And the US Secretary of State for Defence called it “woke garbage.” I almost want it on a t-shirt. Episode five is one of the most uncomfortable hours’ of television I have ever made. It’s so traumatic I moved myself to tears frequently during the making of it. I just hope that people are adult enough to open up a conversation, not of division but of inclusion because of it. We’re all guilty somewhere, somehow of not listening and then acting upon not listening. 

It’s careful to suggest, too, that a lot of contemporary problems are due to economic reasons out of all of our hands?

I know Russell, and he would’ve debated whether or not to include the Brexit lines. But to a character like Clive, how could Brexit not matter? I think it comes out in a very clever way. It makes you empathise with him. David Morrissey’s performance is so incredible in this drama. Alan’s, too. They are both superb. I’m so proud of what they have achieved, because it was jumping into the unknown for both of them. They are friends of old. That comfort in each other allows them to go to some really dark places. David said from the start, I am not playing a villain. That is not who I want to play. People can call me that. But that is not what I am going to play. He has been led along a path, promised all sorts of things, treated with a lack of respect and has been buried under it. David’s decision to play that is what makes Tip Toe a fully realised drama, rather than a diatribe against a certain way of being. It is asking a question: Have we learned how to live with each other? Have we learned who we are?

Who do you most want to watch Tip Toe?

I want straight men to watch it. They don’t usually turn up for this kind of thing. One of my greatest achievements is when straight people come to me and say “we watched It’s a Sin” or the standalone episode of The Last Of Us I directed, which featured a gay love story. Everyone is searching for the universal experience. To get a straight male audience involved in this material would be a great achievement.