The Scottish star discusses the hard-hitting show that is putting modern-day homophobia back in the spotlight, streaming on TVNZ+
After the seismic cultural impact of It’s A Sin, writer Russell T Davies returns with Tip Toe, a five-part drama that looks directly at the growing tension, misinformation and anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric creeping back into everyday life.
Now available to stream on TVNZ+, Tip Toe stars Alan Cumming as Leo Struthers, the owner of Spit and Polish, a gay bar on Manchester’s Canal Street, and David Morrissey as Clive Goss, his troubled next-door neighbour.
The series begins with a brief but shocking opening scene, where Clive’s wife can be heard screaming, “What have you done… you’re a monster!” as the camera pans around to show Clive standing on his suburban doorstep and Leo hanging from a nearby lamppost. An ominous subtitle reading ‘SIX DAYS EARLIER’ appears and the story begins.
For Cumming, the role felt urgent before he had even read the scripts.
“I was on board before I read it. Russell had told me about it,” he says. “What it made me feel was how it absolutely needs to be told because it’s so prescient and it is so about now. Violence and hatred have become so normalised. It has got completely out of control.”
Cumming’s portrayal of Leo is at the centre of the story.
“Leo is a man nearing sixty who has recently broken up with his partner and is struggling to keep his business, a gay bar called Spit and Polish, on Canal St, together,” Cumming explains. “He’s a man who is a little bit lost, but functioning. He means well. He’s kind. He’s got his found family around him. And then this series of insane events happen around him. He could be any of us.”
That last line feels like the key to Tip Toe. This is not a distant horror story or a warning from some imagined future. Davies is writing about a climate already here: a world where online radicalisation, culture-war rhetoric and casual dehumanisation can quickly move from screens into streets, homes and minds.
Leo and Clive have lived next door to one another for 14 years, but barely know each other.
“At the start of the show, he doesn’t really have one,” Cumming says of Leo’s relationship with Clive. “A nod of the head and a hello. Then this incident happens where he gets locked out of his house and has to go next door. That’s the start of the whole thing, ten days that turn out to be incredibly intimate and ultimately nightmarish.”
“In a funny way, I feel that Clive probably speaks to Leo about things that he’s never spoken to anyone in his life about before. It becomes very intimate very quickly.”
That intimacy is part of what makes the show so unsettling. Tip Toe is a thriller, but it is also a pressure-cooker portrait of modern life, where fear, ego and ideology can sit dangerously close to the surface.
“Russell is so clever,” Cumming says. “You’re on the edge of your seat despite knowing what is going to happen. The structure of the show is a mirror to society. You’re genuinely terrified of what might happen in life. And I think we should all be terrified of how society is going.”
He adds that while some projects can be done for pleasure, Tip Toe belongs to another category.
“This is something that challenges people and you choose those things for a reason.”
A major part of that challenge is the show’s depiction of the digital age. Tip Toe explores how misinformation and online hostility can isolate people further rather than connect them.
“Social media and the digital age don’t come out too well in this story,” Cumming says. “There are many great things about it. The information available to us, access and the potential to connect with people who are different to us. All these things that you think would make our society better. But of course it presents these opportunities for misinformation and for that to breed, as it does in this story, horrible consequences.”
For Cumming, it is not simply about technology but about disconnection.
“It’s a warning in many ways. About how much we’ve stopped connecting with each other. About how much we’re dissociating from one another. We have our heads down too much when we should be looking at one another.”
The emotional toll of making the series was significant. Cumming describes filming in Manchester as “very monastic”.
“It’s an exhausting script to act, that puts you in a very weird emotional state,” he says. “There was never really a day when there wasn’t something incredibly intense to do.”
Still, he sees the work as deeply necessary.
“I hope that everyone is challenged by this. It’s a genius piece of writing, planting a flag in the ground and saying, ‘Hey, everybody, let’s stop for a minute and look at what is happening and try to hopefully make this better.’ It’s not pointing fingers.”
That refusal to reduce the drama to simple heroes and villains is central to Davies’ writing. Cumming says the show recognises the complexity of people, even when they are making devastating choices.
“The great thing about this show is that it recognises those nuances,” he says. “You can see everyone’s point of view, why they’ve arrived where they have. We contain multitudes.”
Watching it back was still painful.
“I was on the edge of my seat, thinking, don’t, don’t say that. Just for once, keep your mouth shut.”
While Tip Toe looks at a queer generation that has fought to grow older with visibility and legal protection, it also asks what life now looks like for queer youth. Cumming acknowledges things can be easier for young people today, but also harder.
“I know some young people who didn’t even need to come out; they just were. But it can be so much harder. You have a whole system of information that will spread your news despite yourself. It’s all about family. If you’re scared to tell your parents and family, then it’s going to be hard, no matter what.”
He worries about the pressures facing young people: Covid, mental health, anxiety and social discomfort.
“They haven’t been able to practise life in the same way we did,” he says.
Yet the younger cast and crew gave him hope.
“The young people involved in making this show, a show that’s about where we’ve gone wrong and the horrors of how our society has become, themselves filled me with hope. I came away with new optimism.”
As for Davies, Cumming is full of admiration.
“I love him so much,” he says. “He writes authentically of a world that I am a part of and that hadn’t been properly chronicled before. He’s not afraid to be provocative or controversial.”
He is blunt about the importance of the finished work.
“This is an incredible piece of work, and I am so proud of it. I was so attached to it, but I also couldn’t wait to let Leo go. That’s the weight of great writing.”
So who should watch Tip Toe?
“It has something for everyone,” Cumming says. “Middle-aged gay men, parents, women who consider themselves to be open-minded, and, of course, people who espouse anti-LGBT+ rhetoric, to be challenged about their prejudices.”
Ultimately, he says, that challenge is universal.
“Everybody has their prejudices challenged in Tip Toe. This is a piece of drama, but it is also a piece of social commentary that is essential viewing for where we are in the world right now.”
Tip Toe is streaming now on TVNZ+
Interview: Alan Cumming on Tip Toe
The Scottish star discusses the hard-hitting show that is putting modern-day homophobia back in the spotlight, streaming on TVNZ+
After the seismic cultural impact of It’s A Sin, writer Russell T Davies returns with Tip Toe, a five-part drama that looks directly at the growing tension, misinformation and anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric creeping back into everyday life.
Now available to stream on TVNZ+, Tip Toe stars Alan Cumming as Leo Struthers, the owner of Spit and Polish, a gay bar on Manchester’s Canal Street, and David Morrissey as Clive Goss, his troubled next-door neighbour.
The series begins with a brief but shocking opening scene, where Clive’s wife can be heard screaming, “What have you done… you’re a monster!” as the camera pans around to show Clive standing on his suburban doorstep and Leo hanging from a nearby lamppost. An ominous subtitle reading ‘SIX DAYS EARLIER’ appears and the story begins.
For Cumming, the role felt urgent before he had even read the scripts.
“I was on board before I read it. Russell had told me about it,” he says. “What it made me feel was how it absolutely needs to be told because it’s so prescient and it is so about now. Violence and hatred have become so normalised. It has got completely out of control.”
Cumming’s portrayal of Leo is at the centre of the story.
“Leo is a man nearing sixty who has recently broken up with his partner and is struggling to keep his business, a gay bar called Spit and Polish, on Canal St, together,” Cumming explains. “He’s a man who is a little bit lost, but functioning. He means well. He’s kind. He’s got his found family around him. And then this series of insane events happen around him. He could be any of us.”
That last line feels like the key to Tip Toe. This is not a distant horror story or a warning from some imagined future. Davies is writing about a climate already here: a world where online radicalisation, culture-war rhetoric and casual dehumanisation can quickly move from screens into streets, homes and minds.
Leo and Clive have lived next door to one another for 14 years, but barely know each other.
“At the start of the show, he doesn’t really have one,” Cumming says of Leo’s relationship with Clive. “A nod of the head and a hello. Then this incident happens where he gets locked out of his house and has to go next door. That’s the start of the whole thing, ten days that turn out to be incredibly intimate and ultimately nightmarish.”
“In a funny way, I feel that Clive probably speaks to Leo about things that he’s never spoken to anyone in his life about before. It becomes very intimate very quickly.”
That intimacy is part of what makes the show so unsettling. Tip Toe is a thriller, but it is also a pressure-cooker portrait of modern life, where fear, ego and ideology can sit dangerously close to the surface.
“Russell is so clever,” Cumming says. “You’re on the edge of your seat despite knowing what is going to happen. The structure of the show is a mirror to society. You’re genuinely terrified of what might happen in life. And I think we should all be terrified of how society is going.”
He adds that while some projects can be done for pleasure, Tip Toe belongs to another category.
“This is something that challenges people and you choose those things for a reason.”
A major part of that challenge is the show’s depiction of the digital age. Tip Toe explores how misinformation and online hostility can isolate people further rather than connect them.
“Social media and the digital age don’t come out too well in this story,” Cumming says. “There are many great things about it. The information available to us, access and the potential to connect with people who are different to us. All these things that you think would make our society better. But of course it presents these opportunities for misinformation and for that to breed, as it does in this story, horrible consequences.”
For Cumming, it is not simply about technology but about disconnection.
“It’s a warning in many ways. About how much we’ve stopped connecting with each other. About how much we’re dissociating from one another. We have our heads down too much when we should be looking at one another.”
The emotional toll of making the series was significant. Cumming describes filming in Manchester as “very monastic”.
“It’s an exhausting script to act, that puts you in a very weird emotional state,” he says. “There was never really a day when there wasn’t something incredibly intense to do.”
Still, he sees the work as deeply necessary.
“I hope that everyone is challenged by this. It’s a genius piece of writing, planting a flag in the ground and saying, ‘Hey, everybody, let’s stop for a minute and look at what is happening and try to hopefully make this better.’ It’s not pointing fingers.”
That refusal to reduce the drama to simple heroes and villains is central to Davies’ writing. Cumming says the show recognises the complexity of people, even when they are making devastating choices.
“The great thing about this show is that it recognises those nuances,” he says. “You can see everyone’s point of view, why they’ve arrived where they have. We contain multitudes.”
Watching it back was still painful.
“I was on the edge of my seat, thinking, don’t, don’t say that. Just for once, keep your mouth shut.”
While Tip Toe looks at a queer generation that has fought to grow older with visibility and legal protection, it also asks what life now looks like for queer youth. Cumming acknowledges things can be easier for young people today, but also harder.
“I know some young people who didn’t even need to come out; they just were. But it can be so much harder. You have a whole system of information that will spread your news despite yourself. It’s all about family. If you’re scared to tell your parents and family, then it’s going to be hard, no matter what.”
He worries about the pressures facing young people: Covid, mental health, anxiety and social discomfort.
“They haven’t been able to practise life in the same way we did,” he says.
Yet the younger cast and crew gave him hope.
“The young people involved in making this show, a show that’s about where we’ve gone wrong and the horrors of how our society has become, themselves filled me with hope. I came away with new optimism.”
As for Davies, Cumming is full of admiration.
“I love him so much,” he says. “He writes authentically of a world that I am a part of and that hadn’t been properly chronicled before. He’s not afraid to be provocative or controversial.”
He is blunt about the importance of the finished work.
“This is an incredible piece of work, and I am so proud of it. I was so attached to it, but I also couldn’t wait to let Leo go. That’s the weight of great writing.”
So who should watch Tip Toe?
“It has something for everyone,” Cumming says. “Middle-aged gay men, parents, women who consider themselves to be open-minded, and, of course, people who espouse anti-LGBT+ rhetoric, to be challenged about their prejudices.”
Ultimately, he says, that challenge is universal.
“Everybody has their prejudices challenged in Tip Toe. This is a piece of drama, but it is also a piece of social commentary that is essential viewing for where we are in the world right now.”
Tip Toe is streaming now on TVNZ+
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