The show was criticised by the gay press for not addressing the issue of the AIDS epidemic. Davies revived Doctor Who and would return as showrunner in 2022.Īt the time, the response was mixed from gay commentators in relation to the portrayal of the characters. In the second series, the tone became somewhat more serious, with each of the main characters having to make hard choices concerning their futures.Ī recurrent theme throughout the series is Vince's fandom of Doctor Who, with various scenes from the classic series being played (in one instance an awkward situation with a guy Vince brings home). When offered a test drive of a Jeep by a car salesman who makes some homophobic comments, Stuart drives the car straight through the large window of the car dealership. He invites Vince's female colleague, who has a crush on closeted Vince, to Vince's birthday party and then introduces Vince's boyfriend. He blows up a car belonging to his friend Alexander's antagonistic mother (in the second series). Stuart's principal characteristic is that he does whatever he wants, whenever he wants, however he wants.

Stuart, an advertising executive, possesses intrinsic power, able to bend anything to his will. The producers say that Queer as Folk, although superficially a realistic depiction of gay urban life in the 1990s, is meant as a fantasy, and that Stuart, Vince, and Nathan are not so much characters as gay male archetypes. 15-year-old Nathan Maloney ( Charlie Hunnam) is new to the gay scene but is not lacking in self-confidence.

His long-time friend Vince Tyler ( Craig Kelly), who has a crush on Stuart, has less luck with men. The main characters are Stuart Allen Jones ( Aidan Gillen), who is highly sexually active, and successfully so. The script had originally started life with the title Queer as Fuck but Queer as Folk was considered more suitable. The title of the programme comes from a dialect expression from some parts of Northern England, 'there's nowt so queer as folk', meaning 'there's nothing as strange as people' which is a word play on the modern-day English homonym of ' queer', meaning homosexual.

Cast of queer as folk