- Hi, I'm Russell T Davies.
I'm the writer of "It's a Sin,"
the new drama coming up on Channel 4.
- I'm Olly Alexander.
I play Ritchie in "It's a Sin."
And today we're here with BuzzFeed UK
to interview each other about growing up gay in Britain.
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- What was your first gay inkling, thought?
Because I have a theory that we have
kind of a sexual thought, and then we immediately
have a thought that "I mustn't tell anyone this,"
straightaway.
- Well, I think my first sort of gay thought,
and I'm kind of putting this on it retroac,
retroactively? - Yeah.
Yeah. - (snaps fingers) Thank you.
And was I was probably around seven or eight years old,
and I remember touching noses with another boy at school,
and we would rub our noses against each other,
and it was sort of, like we would giggle
and we thought it was really funny,
but the other girls and the other boys in the class
would go, "Ah-ah, you're kissing!"
Or "You're naughty, you can't do that."
So that was when I realized
it was some- (Russell murmurs)
- Done anything that was wrong.
Wah! Wah!
- Yeah, so I knew, so from that moment onwards,
I thought, "Okay, well, people,
being with another boy, it's wrong,
so I can't do that in front of people."
What was it like for you?
When would you say your first sort of inkling?
- Well, even more so.
I mean, we wouldn't even dare rub noses,
honestly. - Right.
- That was kind of, I'd love to pluck out similar examples,
but you wouldn't dare.
I kind of hoped things'd get better,
and yet I find people at your age
and I find people who are 15 or whatever
still telling me the same old stories,
that there's still shame, there's still fear.
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- I was bullied at secondary school,
and I think I-
- Was it gay-looking, or was it specifically gay?
- I was labeled gay without, and I think
this is really common, it's before I even
came to know it in myself.
- Yeah. - Of course, I suspected it.
So the first time I'm wrestling with this word,
this label, is someone attacking me.
- And you've gotta to keep yourself hidden.
And nonetheless, you keep yourself hidden,
but nonetheless, I wasn't playing rugby,
or I wasn't playing football.
So that alone starts.
And they can tell.
There's something in the pack, in the herd.
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So during those days, we're talking about 12, 13,
or 11, 12, 13, 14, what was it like at home?
What were you there? Were you-
- Just everything at home was a bit of a mess,
if I'm honest.
I'd had a lot of issues with my dad,
and then when he left my, when they split up,
he left and moved away and I pretty much
never saw him again.
And I've seen him like a handful of times
since that day, but...
I was also at the same time trying to sort of come to terms
with being gay, and it felt like...
So for me, my teenage years in that way,
and I know everyone's teenage years
are (laughing) really difficult.
- Yeah, yeah. - But for me, it was tough,
and it took me a while to really kinda feel-
- 'Cause you told me once that your mum
didn't know you were gay.
Is that right?
- Yeah.
- You had to properly come out to her, is that right?
- Yeah. I came out to her (laughing) multiple times.
(Russell guffaws)
Yeah.
Yeah, I asked her about this.
I was like, "Mum, well, how could..."
Because actually, if I'm honest,
I felt quite, I was like, how could my mum
not have known I was gay?
- Yeah. - You know, how?
But for her, and she was so honest when she told me this,
and I really appreciated it, she just said
that she didn't, you know, for her, I think,
she admitted she was scared to really acknowledge
that her son was gay, and she was afraid
of how difficult it would be for me.
And you know, when she told me that, and she was crying,
and I was crying, and it was such a moment
of actually healing, 'cause I felt like she was so honest
in that moment, and it made sense,
and I, you know, I'm not angry with her in any way,
and I'm not, but it was an acknowledgement
of something that we didn't know,
and none of us could know how to really navigate that.
When were you able to be out?
When did you feel able to be out?
- This is the '70s, really, but I did belong
to a very marvelous youth theater in West Glamorgan.
There wasn't gay, no one would ever
say the word gay out loud, but it was
the gayest space imaginable, and so many of us
did turn out to be gay, and it was far more important
to me than school or anything.
So it allowed us to be as gay as we possibly could.
We were camp as Christmas, oh my God!
(Olly giggles gently) I mean, what you see
in "It's a Sin," that Pink Palace crowd
with their little jokes, and their little routines,
and stuff like that, that's me and my mates at age 18.
Which was great. I'm so glad I had that youth theater.
So you're going into the '80s then.
So then I went to university
and just slowly started coming out,
for many years saying I was bisexual,
and then gradually kissing boys in secret, stuff like that,
so just slowly easing out, and when it came to my family...
I mean, it's the '80s now, so things were getting better,
and then, which is why I've written this drama,
along comes a disease that...
It's such a strange thing, that the law changed in 1967,
so it takes about 10, 15 years for people
just to relax and start escaping the closet,
and (claps) along comes a disease that apparently kills us.
It was amazing. It was so strange.
It felt like a door being opened,
and then the door being slammed shut.
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- I always connected HIV and AIDS with being gay,
and I tried to figure out where that came from.
- It's (murmurs), but this is why I wrote this,
because they're strange days,
but it's the only childhood I knew.
It's the only growing up I ever knew.
I didn't know any other.
So it also seems kind of normal to me.
I mean, for you, it's like you're growing up
and you're coming out to yourself, and then to your family.
It's like, at what time did a virus enter your thinking?
When did that become part of the same thing?
And bear in mind, no Internet, no nothing,
it's, I look back and I can't think
where we got our information from.
We get a little paragraph in the paper
and something in a gay magazine,
except you were much more interested
in turning the page in the gay magazine
to see the naked boy on the next page
and not (laughing) reading that bit
about people dying, so it was strange.
Remember, too, I wasn't in the kind of storm.
I'd never lived in London.
I think the bigger the city, the bigger things happen.
So I kind of avoided it a lot.
But my friends, my friends started to, you know,
there were illnesses, and people had started disappearing,
and strange days.
- It was something I didn't want to look at too closely,
'cause it was really scary, and I thought,
"Oh, God, first of all, I don't wanna be gay,
and second of all, I definitely don't want to catch this,"
whatever it was, because I didn't even really know.
It wasn't until I got sort of into my early 20s,
I was like, "Okay, I'm gonna properly look at this."
And this is why I'm so happy
to have been involved in this show
(Russell chuckles) with you, because I think
a story can move you in a way that nothing else can.
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- Musically, what do you take out of the '80s?
Is that a good period for you?
- I mean, you tell me, what was it like
hearing all this music, hearing Pet Shop Boys
for the first time.
- I mean, it was amazing.
Again, it felt normal.
(laughing) It's the only one
that I've ever known. - Right.
- I can remember hearing Donna Summer's "I Feel Love"
and more 1970s stuff like that.
Each- - Yeah, what was that like?
- Literally, literally, thinking, "That's me.
There goes my soul."
- I think, for me, this is where a lot of artists nowadays
talk about kind of crying on the dance floor,
this blend of (claps) euphoria and emotion,
and that comes from, I think, disco and house
and (claps) '80s music, dance music.
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- You must meet 15-year-olds now, 14-year-old gay kids,
male, female, whatever, any sexuality coming out,
which is, I mean, it's a better world.
I mean, I know there's huge problems.
Obviously this whole trans row blowing up,
it feels like the same battles happening over again-
- Right. - And they're happening
even more urgently.
But nonetheless, I find a lot of hope now
in the outness of people.
- Yeah, I mean, it shocks me, it amazes me,
to listen to some of these kids who are so open
and able to talk about-
- Yes! - How they feel
and their identities.
I didn't have that language at that age.
- It's amazing, isn't it?
And actually, I would even guess
just that HIV is not so much a part of...
I'm not saying they're ignoring HIV,
I think it's because it's not a killer disease now,
so let's just talk about PrEP, talk about whatever.
It's just completely normal to them.
"It's a Sin" starts on Channel 4 on January the 22nd.
All five episodes will then be immediately available
on All 4, and coming soon on HBO Max.
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