Queer As Folk (UK)

Archive transfer - originally posted August 30th 2005

When this controversial series hit Channel 4's screens back in 1999, the right-wing conservative press were spitting feathers (maybe even feather boas!). The controversy surrounding the broadcast of a major British drama that blew the lid on the real lives of young gay men at the turn of the millennium was out of all proportion. Granted, scenes of rimming, ejaculation, three-way sex sessions, drug taking and oodles of swearing was pushing the envelope, but then someone had to do it, and why not Channel 4 as '99 turned to a new century?
Five years after the second series aired, it's hard to see what all the fuss was about, so much further back have the boundaries been pushed by QAF. The gay sex aspects are still quite in-your-face, but then if you're not the type to want to see such scenes, you're hardly going to be tuning into a series such as this anyway.
QAF was made for gay men and open-minded liberals, and no amount of moaning from the blue rinse brigade or right-wing middle Englanders was ever going to alter the fact that they had nothing to do with it. This wasn't for them, it wasn't meant to be watched by a populist majority audience. It was TV for the Y2K youth, not the WW2 grey perspectives.
But what of the series itself? Well, the acting is a bit touch and go, particularly Craig Kelly as Vince, who is likeable enough but fails to act in any natural or convincing way, and simply comes over as if he's saying his lines, rather than performing them.
Aiden Gillen is the undoubted star turn of the series, as unlikeable as his character Stuart may be. Everything about Gillen's performance as the predatory 29-year-old Casanova is studied, from the cheeky Irish grin to the slicked back hair, from the gravity-defying walk to the outbursts of anger and frustration. Stuart Alan Jones is a monstrous creation, but one I am sure is based in some form on concentrated reality, which in itself is scary.
Charlie Hunnam does well as the schoolboy whose coming out through the course of the serial is well played, and to compare the Nathan of series 1 episode 1 (in which this GCSE gayer is seduced and thrown asunder by the sexual velociraptor that is Stuart) to series 2 episode 2 (in which Nathan has outgrown his dependency on Stuart, and has learnt to play the field) is remarkable.
Russell T Davies really did produce gold with this series, and unearthed some top talent in the process. Many of the associations Davies made on QAF he has taken on and developed throughout his subsequent career, taking people such as musician Murray Gold and casting director Andy Prior on through his career right up to the current Doctor Who revival.
Five years after QAF made the straight world aware of the existence of Canal Street and what nuggets of socio-cultural gold it held for the like-minded and dispossessed, it might be argued that by making gay culture out to be so great, so cool and attractive, the Canal Street we see in QAF no longer exists.
It has become a Saturday night haven for gaggles of straight girls who feel safe away from the prying eyes of young straight males after a bit of skirt. Straight males who don't mind the camper side of life go there to sniff out the gaggles of girls hiding from their charms. Married couples go there too, most probably to reassure themselves that their humdrum straight married 2.4 life together is normal, that they can't possibly be as unhappy as they think they are. Canal Street has become a freak show for the wider world, whereas before it was a niche for gay and lesbian people who felt uncomfortable being themselves amid the prejudices of everyday life.
The world that attracted people to QAF has gone. But just like Stuart and Vince when they sped off to the United States at the end of the series, there will always be the memories. There will never be anything quite as queer as folk.

Queer As Folk, originally transmitted February 23rd 1999 - April 13th 1999 (series 1); February 15th-22nd 2000 (series 2)
Written by Russell T Davies; directed by Sarah Harding and Charles McDougall