The night begins with Vincent Franklin's Henry and his long-term boyfriend Lance (Cyril Nri) on a catastrophic date that ends with police, blood and a single question: how did two men in their forties get here? Across eight episodes Davies rewinds through Henrýs Manchester life, his cramped flat-share with 46-year-old insurance clerk Lance, his dead-end job naming paint colours, and the younger men who orbit them: Fisayo Akinade's whirlwind escort Dean, Freddie Fox's predatory Freddie and Ceallach Spellman's teenager Adam, Cleo (Julie Hesmondhalgh) and her kids, all negotiating sex, money and loyalty in a city that promised liberation but keeps moving the goalposts.
Davies wrote the series during Doctor Who downtime, originally titling it More Gay Men, spinning it from a friend’s 2001 question about why gay break-ups can feel like relief. Shot on location around Canal Street and the city’s glass-fronted towers, the hour-long episodes were paired with two sister series: Banana, eight individual stories from the same universe, and Tofu, an online factual strand about real gay sex lives, the three titles referencing a university experiment measuring erections in response to assorted stimuli. Red Production Company and Adjacent Productions filmed throughout 2014, composer Murray Gold providing the propulsive score for Channel 4’s Thursday-night slot between January and March 2015.
Production Details
Channel 4 / 1 Season / 8 Episodes / 2015
Created by: Russell T Davies
Writer(s): Russell T Davies
Producer(s): Matt Strevens
Main Cast
Vincent Franklin as Henry Best
Cyril Nri as Lance Sullivan
Ceallach Spellman as Adam Whitaker
Hannah John-Kamen as Violet
James Murray as Daniel Coltrane
Julie Hesmondhalgh as Cleo Whitaker
Fisayo Akinade as Dean Monroe
Eleanor Worthington-Cox as Molly Whitaker
Anjli Mohindra as Veronica Chandra
Con O'Neill as Cliff Costello
Freddie Fox as Freddie Baxter
Letitia Wright as Vivienne Scott
