CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews weekend TV: This could have been a chilling drama... if it wasn't for the preachy lecturesSee more Daily Mail on Google - save us as a Preferred SourceBy CHRISTOPHER STEVENS, TV CRITIC Published: 00:08 BST, 1 June 2026 | Updated: 00:25 BST, 1 June 2026
Tip Toe (Channel 4) Rating: Two out of five starsThere's no writer on television better than Russell T. Davies at devising brilliant and original ideas, and wrecking them with heavy-handed execution.Davies has an instinctive knack for a story. But he can't help overloading it with ugly, badly constructed diatribe. The result is like dumping a bungalow on a motorboat. Inevitably, the whole lot sinks.With a lighter, defter touch, Tip Toe could be a chilling drama shot through with comedy. Sadly, every time he gets up to speed, Davies slams on the brakes to deliver another wodge of preaching dialogue. With more skilful writing - or sharper editing, or a director who dared to cut the polemical speeches in half - he could make his point with a single thrust.Instead, he hammers it repeatedly until it's battered flat. Take that title, Tip Toe. It's clever - familiar, yet mystifying. Why is a drama that opens with screams and sirens, and a body hanging from a lamppost, called Tip Toe? You can't help wanting to know.The answer comes halfway through the first episode, in a long, bitter tirade by one of the minor characters who exist to deliver the sermons - Melba (Paul Rhys), a barfly whose flamboyant charm has been washed away by alcohol. Channel 4's new five-part series Tip Toe premiered on Sunday at 9pm and features Alan Cunning (pictured) as Leo, the owner of a successful bar in Manchester's gay village One part of the episode sees Leo locked out of his house and knocking sheepishly on the door of his next-door neighbour, Clive (pictured with Leo), played by David Morrisey Clive insists on looking after Leo's spare key, and starts letting himself into the house uninvitedInsisting that Britain has become a viciously homophobic country where it's dangerous to be gay, Melba says, 'I used to walk into a room and go "Ta-daa!" Now, I tiptoe, just in case.'It's a great line: memorable, subtle, quotable. But it was buried in a mound of sour speechifying that failed to convince.Even Alan Cumming, on the receiving end of the lecture, looked as if he couldn't wait for the harangue to end.Cumming plays Leo, owner of a successful bar in Manchester's gay village, where Davies's first big hit, Queer As Folk, was also set in the 1990s.When we first see him, he's pelting down the street in his vest and an atrocious pair of tight flesh-coloured undies, in pursuit of a thief who spent the night and then stole his laptop. Free ride of the weekendEx-SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon faced soft questions on The Assembly: Unseen (ITV1). One woman asked if she'd travelled down by helicopter that day. Well, she couldn't have taken the camper van, because she didn't know about it. Leo ends up locked out of his house and knocking sheepishly on the door of his next-door neighbour, Clive - played by David Morrissey, full of the menacing disapproval that is his trademark.Clive insists on looking after Leo's spare key, and starts letting himself into the house uninvited. That's a great set-up for a thriller.Tip Toe starts to go wrong when Leo and an employee with a gun rescue a trans woman friend who lives in fear of her housemates, four Polish thugs. The scene, which arrives in the plot from nowhere, is a bizarre and nonsensical fantasy.If you haven't started watching yet and you still fancy giving it a try, be aware that the final five minutes consist of the cast masturbating.Not Morrissey, though. He's watching snuff videos. I don't know whether to be thankful for that or not.
