A coming of age, voyage of discovery drama in which the main characters happen to be gay

Queer as Folk is a drama series written by Russel T. Davies and produced by Nicola Chindler, of Red Production Company, for Channel 4 in the UK, there is also a US version. The first series comprised eight episodes and the second and final series added two further episodes. It is the tail of three men. Stuart Alan Jones(Played by Aiden Gillen), who is worrying more and more as he approaches his 30th Birthday. Vince Tyler (Craig Kelly), a long time friend of Stuart since they were teenagers who hangs around all the time in the vain hope of realising his dream. Nathan Maloney (Chris Hunnam), as the series starts Nathan is only 15 and about to experience a whole new world.

Nathan enters the scene

The first episode covers Nathan's first evening on Canal Street, Manchester. This is the heart of gay Manchester. He looks nervous and asks 'What's the best place to go?'¹. He ends up just sitting by the canal the young, blond and fresh Nathan catches Stuart's attention as he walks past, much to Vince's annoyance as he watches from Stuart's cars. Stuart before too long has Nathan whisked off to his apartment, as Nathan later said, he did it on his first night.

'I was 15. I did it the first time I went out. I quite proud of that. I'm dead proud of that!'²

Stuart is giving Nathan his first gay sexual experience ³ when the phone rings. Stuart's baby is about to be born, this he is being told as Nathan cums over him.

Nathan start's to model himself on Stuart, leaves home to live with Vince's mum Nancy, and starts to hang around with the other two.

Nathan at school

Following that first night Nathan is driven to school by Stuart in his 4x4 which was vandalised overnight with the word queer painted on the side, he drives Nathan right up to the front door, so no hiding there then. A boy in Nathan's year Christian is hot and Nathan says he would do him if he had the chance. Christian later turns up on Canal Street with a girlfriend, only to be outed by Nathan as a queer basher. Nathan takes some bullying in front of his form room one morning and the teacher tells him off for his retaliation but not the others for the provocation. During registration Nathan instead of saying here responds to his name queer, the teacher is about to take him to the headteacher. Nathan says why not I'm sure he'd love to here about how he was being allowed to be name called while in earshot of the teacher.

Stuart's baby and thoughts of mortality

A gay playboy, Stuart cruises the bars of Canal Street looking for fresh meat to be conquered. He drifts from one one-night stand to the next never returning to ploughed fields, always hunting fresh prey. He is so full of confidence you'd think the whole world would know Stuart for what he is, however he hasn't come out to his parents and doesn't until one of his young nephews blackmails him into it in QAT2⁴.

Stuart helped out some lesbian friends by providing some sperm so they could have a baby. The arrival of the infant, Alfred⁵, to playboy Stuart gets him thinking about his age, nearing 30, and that he has never had a long-term relationship, except with Vince, but that's never been consummated. However when Romi the mother of the child starts to undergo proceedings to help Lance, an African fellow lecturer, stay in the country Stuart is called upon to be the spoiler by Romi's life-in lesbian lover of six years.

'He's a calendar that kid. He's a clock. A great big stopwatch just staring me in the face.'⁶

Vince's dreams and fantasies

Vince has known Stuart since forever, they both came out in their teens, and since then Vince has constantly hung around the more charismatic Stuart in the vain hope to one day become one of his myriad conquests. However Vince is looking for love not just sex, and during the first series he actually acquires the one thing Stuart never has, a boyfriend.

Vince works in a supermarket and isn't 'out' to his colleagues who early on in the series try to set him up with the new girl Rosie. This leads to quite an hilarious scene where Vince is on the phone to Stuart describing the inside of his first straight pub. However Stuart through a childish prank at Vince's 30th party leads to Vince coming out at work.

A funeral amongst the gay community

At the start of episode one Stuart and Vince were seen out in the village with Phil when Nathan first appears. In episode three when Vince is left yet again looking after Nathan, Phil pulls to get away from the baby minding. They go back to Phil's and the shag⁷ gets out some drugs which Phil takes but has a fit in doing so, the shag leaves and doesn't even call any emergency services.

Episode four begins with the guys not knowing what has happened to Phil as they think he is merely not returning their calls. Later after he is found dead do we have the only funeral in QAF. ⁸ Vince seems to be the only one to take it seriously, Stuart is trying to pull, as normal, however Vince does meet an Australian friend of Phil's Cameron.

Love and Vince

Cameron⁹ who Vince meet at the funeral gives Vince his card and asks him to ring, Vince tells Stuart this in his 4x4. Stuart picks up Cameron's business card and dials pretending to be Vince's PS. So after a little umming and hahing the first date is arranged.

On the date Vince's mobile goes off, 'it's Stuart'. Cameron takes the phone off him and throws it into the canal.

Stuart Coming Out to his Family

Possibly one of the highlights of QAF2 is the attempted blackmailing by his elder nephew who when sent up to play computer games logs into bigcockcity and blurts it out. Stuart then sends his younger nephew off to buy chips gives the young lad a dunking down the toilet. He then demands money by threatening to say that Stuart touched him to get leverage for his separated father in the custody case. Stuart calls his bluff next time all the family are together, and says

'I'm queer; I'm gay; I homosexual. I'm a poof, I'm a poofter; I'm a ponce! I'm a bum-boy, baddie-boy, backside-artist, b****r - I'm bent. I am that a**e-bandit, I lift those shirts. I'm a faggot-a**e, fudge-packing, s**t-stabbing up-hill gardener. I dine at the downstairs restaurant; I dance at the other end of the ballroom; I am Moses at the parting of the red cheeks! I f**k and I am f**ked; I suck and I am sucked; I rim them and I w**k them and every single man's had the f**king time of their life! And I'm not a pervert.'

His sister already knew but the shock for his parents is a little much. Added to that is the fact that he also tells him that he is a father.

The Mothers

Vince's Mum Nancy has known about Stuart and Vince being gay since they were 14. When Nathan 'explodes out of the closet' his Mum Janice initially confronts him about it, but later once Nathan has moved in with Janice gets to share and find out that being the Mum of an out gay teenager does have advantages. For example the great club scene which she and Janice attend just to keep an eye on the boy. In QAF2 when Stuart finally comes out, the two mother's comfort Stuart's Irish mother.

Episode Guide

Series 1

Series 2

Taking it further

America as with all good programming wanted to have their own American version of the show. The fear was that they would dilute the shock values of the original series due to the stricter guidelines controlling the depiction of sex in the US. However the end result had very little watering down from the original British version of the show.