Russell T Davies’s Tip Toe is a stark state-of-the-nation drama

Tip Toe, the new Channel 4 drama from Russell T Davies, doesn’t hold fire. In the opening scene, a man hangs lifelessly from a lamppost in a Manchester street. The victim, we find out when we’re transported back 10 days, is LGBTQ+ bar owner Leo (Alan Cumming). He’s been killed for being homosexual in an era when prejudice is confidently resurfacing.

From here, it segues into a five-part drama that feels, at times, like a buffet of Davies’s previous work: the sexed-up fizz of Queer as Folk, the mischief of Cucumber and the foreboding of Years and Years. It’s directed by Peter Hoar, whose credits include Davies’s devastating 1980s Aids elegy It’s a Sin (Leo is HIV positive).

Locked out of his house in his underwear, Leo seeks help from his bigoted, unhappily married, electrician neighbour Clive (David Morrissey), whose resentment is exacerbated by work drying up. Unbeknown to Clive, his 16-year-old son George (Jackson Connor) is secretly gay, while his other son, 25-year-old Saul (Joseph Evans), masturbates on OnlyFans for his male and female subscribers.

Tip Toe leads with the state-of-the nation theme, occasionally to a proselytising degree. Leo’s friend Melba (Paul Rhys) has a lengthy speech about the resurgence of homophobia (“I used to walk into rooms and go: ‘Ta-da!’. Now I walk on tip toe”). Elsewhere, every conceivable culture wars box is ticked: trans rights and the gender critical, refugees, Brexit, Donald Trump.

The script is stronger in prime Davies territory: the chaos and sweetness of Leo’s bar, and the wider Canal Street queer scene in Manchester, where gay, straight and transgender characters happily coexist. Leo’s bickering friendship with Stephanie (Elizabeth Berrington) is particularly sharply drawn.

A stunningly unpretentious performance from Cumming lets you get to know Leo, who’s nearly 60, in his wild moments (“I’m going to get laid!”) and the thoughtful ones, as he gently counsels George. Morrissey is equally brilliant as Clive, peeling back layers of bitterness and misinformation until finally we arrive at the hate.

Tip Toe works best not just as a study of Clive’s attitudes, but also Leo’s endlessly patient management of them. The story’s climax feels excessive – and is not sufficiently justified in the buildup – but that was a risk Davies was prepared to take. Maybe subtlety is becoming a luxury some feel they can no longer afford.

Nick Antosca’s Cape Fear on Apple TV+ is inspired by Martin Scorsese’s 1991 psychological thriller starring Robert De Niro (Scorsese is an executive producer here, as is Steven Spielberg). That film was a remake of the 1962 movie with Robert Mitchum and Gregory Peck, which was itself based on John D MacDonald’s novel The Executioners.

Javier Bardem plays Max Cady, who is released from prison after 17 years, apparently wrongfully convicted for killing his pregnant wife. He seeks revenge on the lawyers who put him away: prosecutor Tom Bowden (Patrick Wilson) and defence attorney Anna (Amy Adams), now a married couple.

The show emerges as an old-school southern gothic with modern licks (revenge porn, microdosing). Bardem’s villain is a timeless grinning demon – equal parts charm and evil – milking his victimhood. The Bowden children (Zach, played by Joe Anders, and Lily Collias as Natalie) are screwed up, Euphoria-style.

Antosca co-created 2019’s The Act, a fascinating, understated true crime study of the Gypsy-Rose Blanchard case, in which the young American woman plotted with her boyfriend to kill her mother after years of abuse in 2015. But here he goes for the jugular. As Cady’s campaign escalates, so do the gory jump scares – a severed digit is just the start.

There are many homages to Scorsese’s thriller (music, stylised visuals, casting decisions that I’ll let you discover for yourself). The highly problematic connection between Cady and Natalie is also given a twist. Having access to only eight of the 10 episodes, I can’t tell you if it matches the movie’s famous waterlogged climax.

Cape Fear’s length is a big drag; it means it scatters into subplots, drawing focus from the central story. It’s salvaged by great performances, though, not least from Adams, who’s in her tough-cookie element. I prefer Bardem’s take on Cady, too: it’s more relaxed and equivocal than De Niro’s histrionics, and therefore more disturbing.

The new ITV1/ITVX reality show The Vardys chronicles the relocation of the former Leicester City striker and England footballer Jamie, his wife, Rebekah, and their children to Italy, where he was signed to US Cremonese in Lombardy to try to prevent their relegation from Serie A.

Rebekah starred in the real-life footballers’ wives panto that was labelled “Wagatha Christie”. She brought and lost a libel case – estimated cost £3m – against Coleen Rooney, the wife of Wayne, who’d deduced through Instagram cunning that Rebekah was selling stories about the Rooneys to the Sun.

The public was hugely entertained by the 2022 trial, as Coleen and Rebekah glided into court gussied up like Sicilian mob wives, and Wayne carried his wife’s handbag like a faithful butler in a Wag remake of The Remains of the Day.

Rebekah explains that it wasn’t fun for the Vardys (“I was treated worse than paedophiles”). Of the case, she says: “I will never, ever, apologise for something I didn’t do.” She adds – unconvincingly – that she harbours no ill-will against Coleen, and it wouldn’t be “Birkins at dawn” if they met again: “I’m so fucking bored of it.”

The series, similarly, is otherwise dull, following the ever-immaculate Rebekah as she house-hunts in Italy or performatively searches for baked beans. The family is sweet but they are not the Beckhams or the Rooneys (the latter have their own Disney+ reality show in the works). Nor is there much Welcome to Wrexham-esque jeopardy about Jamie’s progress (

Cremonese got relegated and he left after one season).

There is too little spice in the show’s arrabbiata sauce, though you do learn that it’s possible to make living in a luxury villa overlooking Lake Garda look like torture.

Photograph by Ben Blackall/Channel 4, Apple TV, ITV