Russell T Davies on Tip Toe’s horrifyingly violent ending: ‘Delighted it was over’

Tip Toe creator and writer Russell T Davies has reflected on shooting the show’s harrowing finale.

Warning: spoilers ahead of the ending of Tip Toe.

The five-part Channel 4 miniseries chronicled the growing tension and hostility between warring Manchester neighbours Leo (Alan Cumming) and Clive (David Morrissey).

The Queer as Folk and It’s a Sin creator concluded the LGBTQ+ show with a devastating finale. 

Clive and a group of hooligans brutally murder Leo and leave his body hanging from a lamppost after he’s wrongly accused of being a paedophile.

The deeply shocking moment and imagery stunned viewers with its powerful message about the rise of hatred and bigotry in the UK.

Speaking about shooting this deeply harrowing sequence, Davies told the Independent that the ending took three days to film.

‘We had Alan Cumming, a stuntman, and a dummy’

“We had to be very careful with it,” Davies shared of the scene. “There was a school nearby that broke up at 3.30pm, so we had to stop at that point every single day.

“We were next to quite a major A road, so we had to erect huge screens to block off the set, otherwise cars driving along would have seen a man hanging, and we could have caused an accident.

“It was all very complicated and meticulously planned – we had to build that lamppost. We had Alan Cumming, a stuntman, and a dummy.

“When the crew first hoisted the dummy up into the air, absolute silence fell over the entire street. Everyone stopped what they were doing and just stood there, as the enormity of it hit us.”

Davies added that while the scene is disturbing on the screen, the cast of hooligans were “the loveliest boys”.

Davies also noted that the hanging scene was shot before the shoot’s one-week break. “Everyone could let go of it and shake it off,” he explained. “It gave people time to recover from something that was genuinely traumatic.

“For Alan, filming it, he had to be at the centre of a lot of hostility. Even though it’s acting, you still have to be held back and have a rope put around your neck, and so he was absolutely delighted it was over.”

Davies also revealed that Channel 4’s Compliance department were worried about broadcasting the scene. 

“There were a lot of warnings said on screen before it was transmitted. And there were lots of conversations about how to get the scene right,” he explained.

“Channel 4 is there to be edgy and bold and radical, to cause debate and to be controversial. But we didn’t linger on his face after he was hanged. I just think that would be torturous, and kind of obscene.”

Tip Toe is available to watch now on Channel 4 in the UK.

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