{"id":12700,"date":"2026-06-23T09:31:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T09:31:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/culturalleft.org\/cl\/2026\/06\/23\/tip-toe-gripping-drama-a-timely-reminder-to-fight-back-reviews-culture-socialist-worker\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T09:31:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T09:31:18","slug":"tip-toe-gripping-drama-a-timely-reminder-to-fight-back-reviews-culture-socialist-worker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/culturalleft.org\/cl\/2026\/06\/23\/tip-toe-gripping-drama-a-timely-reminder-to-fight-back-reviews-culture-socialist-worker\/","title":{"rendered":"Tip Toe: Gripping drama a timely reminder to fight back Reviews & Culture – Socialist Worker"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Clive\n

Clive and Leo. played by David Morrissey and Alan Cumming (Photo: Channel 4)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Russell T Davies\u2019s Tip Toe is superb.<\/p>\n

Combining \u00adoutstanding \u00adperformances with sharp, intelligent \u00adwriting, itt confronts the growing \u00adhostility faced by LGBT+ people while asking questions about the \u00adsociety that \u00adproduces such hatred.<\/p>\n

At the centre of the story are neighbours Leo and Clive, played superbly by Alan Cumming and David Morrissey.<\/p>\n

Leo is warm, charismatic and at times frustratingly na\u00efve, while Clive is never reduced to a simple villain, as \u00adchilling as Morrissey\u2019s \u00adportrayal of him is.<\/p>\n

Instead, we see a man consumed by \u00adinsecurity, \u00adresentment and fear, overwhelmed by \u00adcontradictions he is unable to resolve.<\/p>\n

Morrissey\u2019s \u00adperformance is \u00adparticularly impressive, showing how prejudice can grow not through monstrous intent but through bitterness, frustration and a desperate search for someone else to blame.<\/p>\n

The writing is \u00adstrongest when it explores how wider social pressures shape \u00adindividual lives. Social \u00adisolation, toxic \u00admasculinity, online radicalisation and family \u00adtensions all play important roles in the drama.<\/p>\n

Tip Toe suggests that when people struggle to cope with lives shaped by insecurity and uncertainty, \u00adreactionary ideas can take root.<\/p>\n

The \u00adtargets are often those who are seen as different, \u00advisible or vulnerable.<\/p>\n

What makes the series so effective, however, is its insistence that this hatred does not emerge from nowhere. Casual prejudice, \u00adculture war rhetoric and political attacks on LGBT+ rights accumulate until discrimination begins to feel normal.<\/p>\n

Davies asks us to c\u00adonsider what \u00adhappens when \u00adpoliticians, the media and world leaders spend years questioning the legitimacy of LGBT+ lives.<\/p>\n

The consequences, he \u00adsuggests, are not confined to newspaper columns or social media debates. They find their way into homes, \u00adworkplaces and communities.<\/p>\n

I found the final episode almost impossible to watch without anger. Its violence is shocking and graphic.<\/p>\n

But what lingers \u00adafterwards is the realisation that the forces driving the tragedy are all too recognisable.<\/p>\n

Across Britain and beyond, LGBT+ people, and other oppressed groups, are increasingly being turned into political \u00adfootballs by \u00adgovernments and \u00adopportunistic \u00adpoliticians \u00adlooking for s\u00adcapegoats.<\/p>\n

We have seen this very recently with Reform UK removing Pride flags in Gateshead and \u00adwhipping up hatred towards \u00adminority groups in Southampton.<\/p>\n

Yet Tip Toe is not a \u00adcounsel of despair. The anger it \u00adgenerates should not lead to hopelessness but to action.<\/p>\n

Every right won by LGBT+ people was achieved through \u00adstruggle, solidarity and \u00adresistance.<\/p>\n

Davies has \u00adcreated a drama that points a finger at what is going wrong in our world, but also reminds us that we have a \u00adresponsibility to \u00adchallenge it.<\/p>\n

Tip Toe is \u00adgripping, \u00addevastating \u00adtelevision\u2014and a timely call to fight back.<\/p>\n