Tip Toe Review: Alan Cumming Shines in a Powerful Queer Drama
Russell T. Davies' series confronts modern homophobia and transphobia with biting humor, unsettling complexity, and standout performances.
Russell T. Davies’ latest contemporary queer drama, Tip Toe, accomplishes quite a lot. Both an over-the-top romp through contemporary gay life and a harsh, inquisitive nightmare of modern-day homophobia and transphobia, Tip Toe asks the million-dollar question: “In a world where things were promised to get better, why has everything actually become quite worse?”
Time is an essential element in the series, both in theme and form. The show’s alarming opening scene — revealing the death of its main character, Leo (Alan Cumming) — tells the audience everything it needs to know going into the series: this is not a happy story. Davies’ writing and Peter Hoar’s direction play with audience expectations by weaving several conflicting genres into the narrative, often blending those elements into a single scene.
Following that harrowing opening, the narrative flashes back ten days, and the audience sees a much different picture of Leo’s life. The 59-year-old owns Spit and Polish, a lively and lived-in gay bar on Manchester’s Canal Street. When his previous night’s hookup steals his laptop, Leo chases the perpetrator into the street in his underwear and gets locked out of his home.
His only hope of re-entry is a visit to his next-door neighbors, a family of working-class Brits. After years of rarely speaking to one another, Leo and the Goss family find themselves inextricably linked. As Leo enters their kitchen to wait for friendly backup from his blunt, conservative friend Stephanie (Elizabeth Berrington), we meet Clive (David Morrissey), the family patriarch, and his two sons, George (Jackson Connor) and Saul (Joseph Evans).
Davies doesn’t hold back in contrasting the two neighbors, with Leo attempting to make light of the situation and Clive firing back with pointed judgments. Clive makes jokes about Leo’s “promiscuous” lifestyle and insinuates that a man like him is not to be trusted around 16-year-old George. The setup makes it all the more shocking when Clive asks for a spare key to Leo’s home, setting off an increasingly uncomfortable chain of events.
Morrissey’s performance is especially strong. In a script that demands a constant flip-flop of emotion and reaction toward Leo’s ever-present gay world, Morrissey masterfully makes sense of a character meant to represent the nonsensical and often contradictory political beliefs of the everyday social conservative. Clive’s world is totally immediate; none of his past actions seem to influence his current state of being. Once a thought or image overtakes his mind — whether based on real observations or prejudiced fantasies — any goodwill earned by Leo is thrown out the door. It’s an absurd rejection of reason, and Morrissey nails it.
The politics of the show are complex. Davies takes the 2026 queer experience — the good, the bad, and the ugly — and bottles it up. With accusations of sexual grooming and “recruitment” spreading among both far-right groups and political centrists, the creator of Queer as Folk and It’s a Sin explores genuinely uncomfortable territory. George is coming to terms with his sexuality, and in a moment of crisis, he uses a gay hookup app to contact Leo. Is George old enough to be on an app like that? Absolutely not. But he feels he has no one else to turn to for advice about his sexuality.
George panic-blocks Leo, and instead of letting the situation die, Leo takes it upon himself to find the teen’s phone number and continue offering advice. Leo has good intentions here, but the interaction is entirely inappropriate.
Davies also explores the hostility faced by trans people. Zee (Iz Hesketh), a trans woman, feels unsafe in her apartment and is unable to get proper medical care. At the same time, Zee is an agent of chaos. When Leo decides to step away from the George situation, Zee steps in, anointing herself the overseer of George’s queer awakening. She trots the boy out on the town, introduces him to her other queer friends (all adults), and puts him in makeup for the first time.
While it would be nice to see George’s escape from his closeted life at home as harmless, the situation is much more fraught, and Davies does not hold back when Clive’s response turns explosive.
Tip Toe is full of standout performances. George is innocent yet frustrating, and Jackson Connor brings a simmering rage to the character that works well. Leo’s gay pal Melba (Paul Rhys), a veteran of an earlier gay era, delivers an extraordinary monologue early on about the realities of gay life in 2026, bringing the anxieties of LGBTQ people across generations to the forefront with cynical yet dazzling flair.
And, of course, Cumming is a force of nature. An exchange between him and Morrissey in the fourth episode feels like something straight off a West End stage. Cumming’s Leo is HIV-positive, and his boiling frustration with the ignorance of Clive and others like him provides the emotional backbone of Tip Toe. He maintains an unshakeable charm throughout the five episodes, and despite some questionable actions, Leo’s inevitable — yet avoidable — death is viscerally upsetting.
At the height of the information age, how ironic is it that we are so plagued by miscommunication? Davies fills his highly realistic world with this misanthropic yet tragically real dilemma. With astute and poignant performances from its stars, Tip Toe is a powerful and worthwhile addition to the gay canon.
★★★★☆
Tip Toe is now streaming in full on Starz. Visit starz.com.
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