It's a Sin, 9 pm Channel 4, 22nd Jan CONTAINS SPOILERS **titled edited by MNHQ**

[notawittyname1954]

I keep seeing trailers for this. Anyone else looking forward to it?

Years and Years cover

@SimonJT

People who are nice, hardworking, shy, easily pleased etc are allowed to have sex and enjoy it. The whole “maybe it was rape’ is just another way of making one AIDS victim more worthy than another.

I totally agree and this is playing into the whole HIV narrative and the stigma. It does not matter how any disease comes about, no one is more worthy than another (an unpopular Mumsnet opinion when it comes to obesity, smoking, alcoholism etc). I have also seen this in the past: 'why have we "cured" AIDS when it's a disgusting disease, and not sorted out breast cancer?' IT IS NOT A COMPETITION. When it comes to HIV, I am just so pleased at the amazing strides in care that exist - from a killer to one that is "easily" managed. (I work with people living with HIV regularly, I know it's not super-easy but it is largely one tablet a day). Science is incredible and the way forward.

I didn't like how Colin's death was not as important as Ritchie's. His death wasmoee like one of the minor characters. Everyone moved on. Like he wasn't important enough to be the climax of the story.

I also agree it should have been called the mummies. Great depiction of them all. Although strange that Jill had no love life of her own shown.

I'll admit though, DH was working last night so I put Pet Shop Boys on and turned up the volume.

Bit late to this discussion as wanted to read the whole thread!
Embarrassed to realise how little I knew about this reality.

I was a teenager in the mid-90s and I wonder if anyone else of a similar age had similar preconceptions as me - by that time the first messages I heard about HIV/AIDS were that 'you don't have to be gay to get it', it affects straight people too - it was almost bundled in with any other STD which were very much in the public consciousness for teens at the time (maybe magazines, etc) - Mark Fowler getting it from hetero sex, and the 1995 movie Kids with Chloe Sevigny which is all about young teens (kids) having unprotected sex, drug use, etc.
(It's also where I first saw the storyline of 'person with one sexual experience gets HIV whereas the one who sleeps around is clear', so I was completely anticipating this with Colin in IAS as well!

So it was kind of an overcompensation - basically in my mind when I was growing up, AIDS was an equal-opportunities killer, and it was slightly homophobic to suggest that it was anything really to do with gay people? Obviously over the years I was aware this wasn't quite the case but genuinely, the extent of it in the gay community as shown in IAS was shocking to me.

Re Keeley Hawes' character, that seemed believable to me (as well as a sort of dramatic twist I could see coming). Perhaps not the dad's instant acceptance but KH was so superficially nice but didn't really seem to want to understand her son that much, or at least wasn't equipped to, so I can see why it was a shock and she was clearly reacting out of anger to herself as well as feeling very hard done by. She seemed to be kind of taking back some kind of control or ownership of Richie's life by dictating who could be with him, she felt she was owed it. (Obviously misplaced and it was a disgusting thing to do).

I think Richie's dads reaction was very believable. I have known hard men to crumble and need their wives support who become the strong ones, when children are ill or die.

Grapes I was a teenager in the 00s and that's how HIV was presented to us as well - just another STD to be aware of like all the others, not a gay specific one. I suppose I never really thought about it that much - I knew that it was AIDS, not HIV which is the really bad one/the killer, but of course being HIV+ means you can develop AIDS.

Re Pet Shop Boys..........the old Now Thats What I Call Music albums are being re released. I bought Now 7 just before Christmas. (this compilation was originally released in 1986) Opportunities by the Pet Shop boys is on there and this version has "who will bury us when we die" said at the end. So im also hearing things i didnt notice before (i was a kid in the 80s) though in 86 i bought their remix album Disco and the version of Opportunities on there was a different one.

[quote MoodyMarshall]@DishedUp

There's quite a misogynistic 'woman as support human' thread running through it, as if men were absolved of caring responsibilities, and Jill's inmate caring nature was down the the innate caring nature of women.

It's very problematic.[/quote]
I'm just catching up with the whole thread and am glad you raised this. I find it deeply distasteful too. The only reason for a woman to exist is in the meek, endless service of men - cleaning and cooking and being emotional support. I get no sense that she has a sex life of her own (not seen the last two eps yet) or indeed a life of her own outside the service of gay men. I watched a RTD interview on Loose Women talking about that era and he said wistfully that so many beautiful boys died. Beautiful boys. And then as an afterthought - 'Oh and women too.' It irritated me.

5B on Amazon is good too, and free.

@Grenlei

I've just finished watching this. Powerful, amazing drama.

I agree Colin's experience was consensual but I think that he realised it didn't have to be like that - men could be open about their sexuality (as per his colleague and then when he goes to the party at the Pink Palace) and that's why he moved in, he wanted to be a part of that world. Moving to London was an opportunity to be who he wanted to be, not end up being used by someone who was in denial about their own homosexuality.

Colin is absolutely the character you're meant to engage with and feel protective of...I was half expecting him to meet someone in New York (I suspected he would be one of the characters who died) but the shock of it, making it appear he'd not been with anyone, that was great writing on RTDs part and reinforced the idea it could happen to anyone. The scenes with him and his mum were just heartbreaking.

I was in my teens and remember the BBC ads, the negative press, AIDS being referred to as a 'gay plague' . Homophobia really was rife then. I can't think of anyone I knew at school or in my home town who was openly gay. There must have been loads, but queer-bashing after the pubs shut on a Friday was still a thing so not many people were brave enough to be out. A few were at uni, but it was very low key. Compared to now; my DC had several openly gay or bi/ pansexual classmates, plus others who were trans or non binary. It's much more acceptable to be who you want to be now and I think that's amazing.

I remember being out one night with some uni friends including a gay couple. I was chatting to one of them and he asked about what I was drinking (some awful alcopop probably given the time) - so I said here try it, which he did, sipping from the bottle.

Another friend pulled me aside after and said how brave I was to do that because 'hes gay, he might well have Aids' . That was in 1995, so nearly 15 years after the starting point of this series. My friend went to private school, university degree...and still in the mid 90s made a comment like that.

What an interesting post. I'm of your generation and I think you're spot on about attitudes of the time. I have teenage dcs and their generation is definitely much more accepting and open. I had a conversation with friends a while back and we all knew men who'd been ostensibly heterosexual at school, even having girlfriends, and later came out as gay. We agreed it must have been awful not to have been able to be open. It must have an effect on your mental health.

@MercyBooth

Re Pet Shop Boys..........the old Now Thats What I Call Music albums are being re released. I bought Now 7 just before Christmas. (this compilation was originally released in 1986) Opportunities by the Pet Shop boys is on there and this version has "who will bury us when we die" said at the end. So im also hearing things i didnt notice before (i was a kid in the 80s) though in 86 i bought their remix album Disco and the version of Opportunities on there was a different one.

That version of Opportunities was released just before West End Girls but it flopped, the version we’re more familiar with was remixed and released the year after. I had no idea the original version was on a Now album!

From Wiki

A notable change between the original and re-recorded versions of "Opportunities" is the omission of the spoken outro "All the love that we had And the love that we hide Who will bury us When we die According to Tennant, the lyrics were removed from the second version of the song as the duo feared the passage would be construed as "too pretentious". The first two lines of the outro, however, are sung within the lyrics of "Why Don't We Live Together?" from the Please album. The original single version of "Opportunities" was unavailable on compact disc until the 1998 U.S.-only Essential compilation album, and was subsequently published on compact disc in the U.K., in a longer edit of the mix, on the 2-disc expanded 2001 remaster of Please.

All the love that we had and the love that we hide who will bury us when we die

There was a same sex couple who lived at the end of our cul de sac when i was growing up. I have a distant childhood memory of a sparkly pink and silver dress on someone very tall. My dad told me this is from the night they had a big party and a few drag queens came.

A few years later my DB and i were playing outside their house with their gorgeous smoky coloured cat who then darted around the side of their house and into their shed.
We followed and also entered the shed and then stood gawping. The walls were covered with posters of nude blokes. Full frontal. I particularly remember the one who had a full head of grey hair and a white beard with one foot perched on a rock by a waterfall. My DB and i never told anyone we had been in there. We kept it quiet because we knew we shouldnt have gone in there at all. Was a bit of an education. This must have been around 1983/84 ish.

They were a lovely couple. They mostly kept themselves to themselves. And never complained about us kids playing near their house or if a ball strayed into their garden.

I cant remember exactly when they moved away but i hope they were okay and happy. Im sure they were happy together. They had been together a long time when they were living near us.

An education indeed, @MercyBooth

Jill from IaS was just being interviewed on Woman's Hour. I wasn't able to listen - does anyone know how to listen on Catchup please?

@ageingdisgracefully

An education indeed, *@MercyBooth*

Jill from IaS was just being interviewed on Woman's Hour. I wasn't able to listen - does anyone know how to listen on Catchup please?

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000s186

Hopefully this should work. I've just listened - it's in the first half. Very well spoken by Lisa Power

Thanks! I'll give it a try.

Easily the best series I've seen in a long time. Loved Roscoe but then again I'm biased. He just struck me as your standard "zero fucks given" Londoner, so I could relate.

Not sure why people felt Keeley was miscast - I thought she played the role brilliantly. I didn't think her character switch was unrealistic - I saw it as a direct reaction of the deception she felt by Ritchie and Jill. Whilst Ritchie's father was a complete cunt, I was heartened by the kindness he showed Ritchie towards the end. Again, this was believable for me. Ultimately Ritchie was his little boy, and no parent should outlive their child. I wish his mother could have put her resentment aside and allowed Ritchie to see his friends one last time.

Agreed with others that it was surprising Jill wasn't more forceful in trying to see Ritchie, rather than waiting around in the B&B, but ultimately, I guess RTW wanted to write that final scene between Jill and Ritchie's mum for the shock factor, highlighting the extent of Ritchie's mum's denial. Whilst it was upsetting for us as viewers, I guess RTW was depicting how cruel Aids was. In some ways Ritchie was lucky to die with his family around him, many others died alone, locked away in hospitals, treated like vermin.

The Colin story was particularly sad I guess because we saw him as a vulnerable, sweet young man. I do agree with some pp that the sex with "football shirt" was consensual, but it was clear he had no say as to when they had sex and what they did... clearly "football shirt" had all the power in that "relationship". Whilst I think it was a factor in him deciding to leave, I felt that he grew tired of being a "lodger" and constantly being asked when he'd be home etc. By moving in with the others he would finally have the freedom to live as an openly gay man. It's just a shame that he really didn't get to experience that for too long.

I'm wasn't too annoyed at the little insight we got into Jill's life. The series wasn't really about Jill. The scene when she visited that lone sufferer at the end destroyed me. She was a kind soul, and that was a pretty consistent theme throughout.

Really enjoying this thread. Thanks @MercyBooth for reminding me what a great song It's a Sin is. Just spent a blissful hour down a rabbit hole of 80s electro pop.

www.huckmag.com/art-and-culture/photography-2/gideon-mendel-the-ward-hiv-aids/

@MercyBooth thank you for that link. Those pictures are heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time.

yes i agree

If you enjoyed this series, I can highly recommend watching the film Holding The Man on Netflix, a true story based in Australia in the 70/80's on the memoirs of Timothy Conigrave and his partner of 15 years John Caleo.

@SweatyBetty20

Not sure if I’m seeing something here that isn’t, but the guy in the bed at the end, the one that had no visitors. Was he the permanent replacement in the tailors that Colin worked in?

OHHH i didnt notice this does anyone know..

I broke my heart at this series, I really did...
I think the bonfire at the back for doris, showing the photo of him as a wee baby,,,,
tears flowed for good hour after