It's A Sin (new Russell T Davies drama)

Is this the first British AIDS drama? I feel like I've heard/read/absorbed a lot of info about America, but I do really think it's important to know how it affected our communities here.

I've always wondered how many South Asian and other brown men were out at the time. I wonder how many were affected by the virus. I wish there was a place to read their stories/remember them.
 
FetchFugly said:
It took some suspension of disbelief to accept the implication that, with all the time he spent in that group, mixing with so many people, the only action he got was those furtive Thursday fumbles.
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Indeed. I thought they could have played up "waiting for the one" a bit more to hammer that home because it was RATHER surprising. Especially then when they showed he wasn't too shy to not be the INSTIGATOR with football shirt boy.

It worked, though. I didn't click at all that the epilepsy was AIDS related. Even to a cry of "Why's he being put in that empty ward?" which Mr Sheena had a look of disbelief at me for :D

POOR COLIN!
 
Beverley said:
Is this the first British AIDS drama? I feel like I've heard/read/absorbed a lot of info about America, but I do really think it's important to know how it affected our communities here.

I've always wondered how many South Asian and other brown men were out at the time. I wonder how many were affected by the virus. I wish there was a place to read their stories/remember them.
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I found Ash terribly underwritten. I really would have liked to have known more.
 
Sheena said:
I found Ash terribly underwritten. I really would have liked to have known more.
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I'd have liked to have seen more of him too. In all the promotion he has been presented together with the other four leads, but in the programme it felt like he was not much more than the beautiful but grounded off and on live in love interest. There was the little Section 28 moment but he didn't really have his own stuff going on like the others.
 
I don’t understand why they sidelined him from the IoW trip either. It wasn’t as if Roscoe did a lot there so he wouldn’t have interrupted anything.
 
I get the impression there were a lot of scenes cut. The Stephen Fry story felt completely random. There had to have been more.
 
I'm two episodes in and haven't read the thread but... it's like a cartoon? Really underwhelmingly one-dimensional for me thus far, and the shittest "New York" street scene I've ever watched.

Do-gooder big jumper girl my current WORST.
 
this might finally be me getting a VPN. I need to watch this show so I can shake and cry like the rest of you!
 
dUb said:
I'm two episodes in and haven't read the thread but... it's like a cartoon? Really underwhelmingly one-dimensional for me thus far, and the shittest "New York" street scene I've ever watched.

Do-gooder big jumper girl my current WORST.
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This is a hot take. Don't make me unstan, bish.
 
Beverley said:
I've always wondered how many South Asian and other brown men were out at the time. I wonder how many were affected by the virus. I wish there was a place to read their stories/remember them.
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I feel Ash's backstory is glossed over here, compared to the other three. But at the same time, I appreciate the diversity of the characters, and I think they do quite a good job of including some nuance about race and the subtle undercurrent of micro-aggressions that (still) permeate British culture.
 
dUb said:
and the shittest "New York" street scene I've ever watched.
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Me and the other half completely lol’d at this scene. It was the same street we’d already seen 30 times but decked with yellow taxis and a green screen.
But it wasn’t really a deal breaker in the grand scheme of things.
 
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Yeah not a massive thing, but it certainly jumped out :square:

I'll watch the whole thing before I comment further
 
To be fair @dUb I haven't watched IAS but I have a really hard time with the way RTD writes in general. Hated Cucumber with a passion and found that Anne Reid speech from Years & Years that went viral to be the height of cringe.

It's clearly resonating with a lot of people so it must just be an acquired taste thing.
 
Watched first 2 episodes last night and absolutely loved it, but now need to wait to find a time to watch the rest with BF.
 
I really enjoyed it . Thought Years and Years guy was good but he was my least favourite . Poor poor Colin and his mum.

didn’t have high hopes after cucumber (the one episode aside which was good) but this was great and harrowing
 
Want to take a moment to highlight the cleverness of juxtaposing the dirty old man who Colin worked for with his obsessive “clean regime” with the floor manager on Doctor Who who spent a long time seemingly obsessively close to Ritchie.

How many people thought the floor manager was just like Colin’s boss and behaving like a perv,
getting right up in Ritchie’s face, invading his personal space? Did you have the rug pulled out from under you when he said to Ritchie there’s something wrong with his skin?
 
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I just read that that scene was inspired by real-life actor turned AIDS activist, Dursley McLinden, who appeared in a Doctor Who story around the same time that episode was set. Quite a lovely little tribute!
 
I watched the final episode last night, and the scene at the hospital hit so hard. There was something about Richie's mother which reminded me so much of my aunt (who also has a gay son), that I found it unbelievably true and upsetting. Her final scene with Jill was also fantastic. I felt Jill's final rebuke was such an incisive explanation of the self-hatred that follows many adult gays who grew up post-epidemic (like many here), but internalised very young the message that gay meant loneliness, marginalisation and death.
 
Interesting that I'm still seeing a lot of tweets about this - uniformly glowing - presumably as people are watching on All 4.

I'm sure part of that is a kind of echo chamber of who I follow and who they follow, but I do think this is going to find a much bigger audience over the coming weeks and months than that initial viewing figure suggested.
 
We were trying to work out where in Soho it was until we spotted that it was filmed in Manchester in the credits :evil:
 
lolly said:
Interesting that I'm still seeing a lot of tweets about this - uniformly glowing - presumably as people are watching on All 4.

I'm sure part of that is a kind of echo chamber of who I follow and who they follow, but I do think this is going to find a much bigger audience over the coming weeks and months than that initial viewing figure suggested.
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Just got a text from a straight friend that I really didn't expect to watch this, and she (and her husband I should add) absolutely adored it. I think it would be great if this could crossover to more of the straight population as it's a part of our history that is often not known properly.. People think they know it, but they don't really. Lots of gay dramas are so aimed at gay people that they become exclusionary when it would be good to educate straight people on this.
 
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This choked me when I saw it a couple of days ago. I'm sure San Francisco was obviously much harder hit than other areas, but the point is still valid.

 
Just finished it. Definitely a vast improvement on Cucumber. Parts I thought worked really well - the Colin storyline absolutely broke me, and the actress who played Jill was wonderful.

There was a high degree of cringe as well though, multiple scenes where the acting and dialogue literally felt like those awful training videos they make you sit through when you start a new job. Random Asian lawyer lady definitely being the absolute worst in that regard. But the good bits made up for the portions that made me want to curl into a ball and die.

I'm not dirty :(:(:(:(:(
 
I mean, yes VoR there were some typically tacky moments but what do you expect from RTD? But the good stuff far outweighed any minor niggles. I am still floored by the final episode a couple of days later.
 
Sheena said:
Oh and I actually SHOCK OUT LOUD GASPED when KEELEY made her matter of fact reveal on the Isle of Wight seafront. I didn't see that coming like that AT ALL.
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This was the punch in the stomach moment.

Agreeing with most here that it was a really great series and I was surprised to be impressed with Olly Alexander in the lead role. Colin though, ah bless. I’ll be thinking about that last episode for a while.

“La!”
 
Watched all five episodes today. Thought it was great, heartbreaking in places. Some fantastic performances especially from Keeley and Olly. I'd like to see another series set through the 90s.
 
I liked the Asian lawyer lady too! I like how she marched into the room to take down the Welsh police and hospital staff. :disco:

Thus was honestly one of the best pieces of television I've seen in a long time. I thought Keely Hawes especially was brilliant, especially in the hospital scenes. And poor Colin and his mum...
 
rocketstail said:
I liked the Asian lawyer lady too! I like how she marched into the room to take down the Welsh police and hospital staff. :disco:

Thus was honestly one of the best pieces of television I've seen in a long time. I thought Keely Hawes especially was brilliant, especially in the hospital scenes. And poor Colin and his mum...
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Yes Keeley was absolutely amazing.
Her scenes in final episode really stuck with me. She was awful but also felt a little sorry for her complete inability to cope with everything. Where she hit the husband who was always the “baddie” really made me :o
 
Loufoque said:
I watched the final episode last night, and the scene at the hospital hit so hard. There was something about Richie's mother which reminded me so much of my aunt (who also has a gay son), that I found it unbelievably true and upsetting. Her final scene with Jill was also fantastic. I felt Jill's final rebuke was such an incisive explanation of the self-hatred that follows many adult gays who grew up post-epidemic (like many here), but internalised very young the message that gay meant loneliness, marginalisation and death.
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This summarises my feelings to it. That final scene with Jill and the mum hit like a tonne of bricks.

I also, as mentioned here, really felt the hospital scene with the mum and dad finding out and the angry father being the one with the better reaction also resonated with me.

I think Richie was meant to be flawed, a little unlikeable, because we ultimately know it’s a defence mechanism to growing up shamed.

Jill was the lead, standout character but Colin... oh my word Colin. What a love. The shock at him fitting in the copy room completely sideblinded me.
 
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Did we know that Colin was on Let It Shine a couple years ago?

 
Is he a real life GAY? (I’ve not seen or read anything of him otherwise...)
 
He identifies as queer and calls himself an out actor in the Pink News interview.
 
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