The inaugural SCENE – Manchester’s new LGBTQ+ film and television festival – opens with a homophonic flourish by revisiting a bravura piece of television history.

In its unapologetic representation of communities which, up to that point, tended to be viewed through the lens of the problematic other, Queer As Folk allowed them to be seen. The show effectively redrew the cultural map of Manchester, throwing open its borders to a nation of small-town boys and girls, marginalised – or worse – in the streets they grew up in.  

Ably hosted by Owain Wyn Evans, the evening commences with a screening of an episode from the first of its two series, followed by a panel discussion featuring writer Russell T Davies, producer Nicola Shindler, and cast members Denise Black, Antony Cotton and Carla Henry.  

A jarring Japanese stereotype apart – a mis-step into racism that Davies has the grace to acknowledge – the programme bears up well; pacy, ribald, quotable and character-driven, it builds to a series of copping off set-pieces, three comedic and one heart-stoppingly tragic. Viewed in a hindsight that takes in Davies’ twin stints as show-runner on Doctor Who, there’s also a delight-inducing reference in the dialogue to Daleks that prefigures other representations in a different timeline.  

The brief for Queer As Folk itself was elegantly simple, as Davies and Shindler between them explain. At the time, Davies was working mainly in soap, in which “I was putting gay characters into everything all the time”. As such, Shindler’s suggestion was that “you should write something completely gay”. Both agreed that, rather than being weighted solely by issue-related storylines, it should also be “joyous and celebratory”.  

As a piece of collaborative work, it’s clearly a show to which all involved look back with love and pride. The eloquent Davies is a past master of the convention panel, and he uses this evening’s occasion to share insights of both gossipy and more substantial import. This includes the snippet that the original series’ sponsors hastily withdrew after the daughter of the CEO was appalled after accidentally catching a late-night glimpse of an episode.

Beyond its commitment to representing Manchester’s gay lives in a symphonic breadth that outstripped the single note portrayals which preceded it, Queer As Folk’s achievement encompassed further into other communities, also less frequently depicted with nuance, all the more so at the time. In another writer’s hands, in another actor’s portrayal, Carla Henry’s curious, protective Donna could have been little more than a device; a pair of heterosexual eyes to guide that section of the audience through an unfamiliar culture. Instead, she emerges as fully developed as the three poster boys of the core cast; a recognisably black young woman with a voice of her own.

However, Henry acknowledges that while “there’s a sense of things being freer in Manchester, there’s a lot more black gay presence…things like hair and make-up are still a problem for black actors”.   

Eloquent as the panel are, it’s the contributions from the floor that inevitably hit closest to the heart. One contributor reveals that while watching the show in secret as a youth, still living at home and feeling the burden of undisclosed difference, “I realised I wasn’t alone any more…and now I’m here with my husband”.  

It’s a theme that Davies takes up in a closing rallying cry, one informed, perhaps, by the ongoing hateful rhetoric directed at trans women in particular, or the ugliness of the racist riots that briefly metastasised across England and Northern Ireland at the beginning of the month. Looking towards Shindler, he reveals: “Now I think that the backlash is getting worse, and I do think there is another drama to be made. We’ve started talking to each other about what we’re writing about now…It doesn’t give a fuck. It won’t back down.”  

Some things might have changed for the better over the past quarter of a century, but the price of complacency is the upsurge of those who sow divisiveness to reap the profits of power. As Davies avers, “the fight is on”. 

By Desmond Bullen, Chief Arts Correspondent

Main image: Nicola Shindler, Antony Cotton, Russell T Davies, Carla Henry and Denise Black attend the opening night of new LGBTQ+ TV Festival, SCENE, at New Century Hall on August 16, 2024 in Manchester, England. Photo by Anthony Devlin/Getty Images for CityCo. Image provided by Premier Comms.

 

 

 

SCENE