Tip Toe Is a Harrowing Melodrama of Queerness and Masculinity in a World Gone Mad

Tip Toe refuses to be misunderstood. Premiering Oct. 2 on Starz, the British miniseries from Queer as Folk creator and Doctor Who reviver Russell T Davies set its stakes as high as the lamppost from which Alan Cumming’s character is seen hanging, dead, just outside his home, in the very first scene. Reminders of this awful outcome open each episode, preceding flashbacks that take us through the escalation of tensions between Cumming’s Leo Struthers and his next-door neighbor, Clive Goss (David Morrissey), over the course of just 10 days. Scripty speechifying and a finale that strains believability notwithstanding, Tip Toe is, in its unabashed melodrama, a harrowing cri de coeur about masculinity in crisis and queer liberation reversed.Leo and Clive have a few things in common. Both pushing 60, the men have been sharing a wall in outwardly identical Manchester rowhouses for 14 years. They’ve also both, when we meet them, hit rough patches in life. Clive, an electrician, is having trouble finding enough work to support a family that includes touchy 16-year-old George (Jackson Connor) and 25-year-old Saul (Joseph Evans), who assists his dad on jobs but isn’t exactly earning the kind o...