It’s A Sin writer Russell T Davies wins Outstanding Achievement Award at the RTS Awards

The Royal Television Society Awards 2021 were presented at a virtual ceremony on Tuesday evening.

And at the end of the night, acclaimed It’s A Sin writer Russell T Davies OBE, 57, was honoured with the award for Outstanding Achievement. 

The screenwriter’s work over the last 20 years was described by the judges as taking ‘television drama to places it’s never been before, explored themes never explored before, and – more than anything – told stories never allowed before.’ 

Congratulations! It’s A Sin writer Russell T Davies OBE, 57, was honoured with the award for Outstanding Achievement at the Royal Television Society Awards 2021, on Tuesday evening

The RTS Awards were hosted by Jonathan Ross, and streamed on the Royal Television Society’s website. 

Announcing the winner of the Outstanding Achievement award, the judges praised Russell’s contribution to the artform

They said: ‘This is presented to a screenwriter whose work over the last twenty years has taken television drama to places it’s never been before, explored themes never explored before, and – more than anything – told stories never allowed before. That writer is Russell T Davies.’

Russell is one of the greatest dramatists of his generation, a writer who – as he put it himself – writes about ‘the big stuff…the stuff that makes you laugh, the stuff that makes you cry’.   

Real stories: Channel 4 series It's A Sin follows the stories of three gay 18-year-olds who arrive in London in 1981, at the beginning of the HIV epidemic

Real stories: Channel 4 series It’s A Sin follows the stories of three gay 18-year-olds who arrive in London in 1981, at the beginning of the HIV epidemic

Gamechanger: The screenwriter's work over the last 20 years was described by the judges as taking 'television drama to places it's never been before' (pictured in 2019)

Gamechanger: The screenwriter’s work over the last 20 years was described by the judges as taking ‘television drama to places it’s never been before’ (pictured in 2019) 

Russell grew up in Swansea and his passion for Seventies television drama propelled him to the West Glamorgan Youth Theatre.

There, he fell in love with the craft of communicating stories to an audience and he first began writing short plays of his own.

After university he knew that television was what he wanted to pursue. The BBC turned him down three times for their graduate traineeship, but by chance he managed to land a job on the children’s show Why Don’t You? produced by BBC Wales. 

His early work in children’s television included a turn as a storyteller on Play School and writing jokes for the Chuckle Brothers. He directed, wrote and produced all kinds of children’s television at the BBC. 

In the early Nineties, Russell moved to Granada Television as a writer on Children’s Ward. He became producer of the show and wrote an episode about a teenage boy with HIV, contracted through a blood transfusion.

A later episode, also written by Russell, centred around the grooming of children by paedophiles in online chat rooms. This was on Children’s ITV, at four thirty in the afternoon in 1994. It was groundbreaking television which won him his first Children’s BAFTA.  

Living in Manchester during the Nineties led Russell to his breakthrough work, Queer As Folk, in 1999. He was writing mainstream shows for Granada by day – and by night immersing himself in the city’s exploding gay culture, with Canal Street as its epicentre. 

Russell realised that if anyone was to put these vivid characters on television, or tell their stories, it should be him.

Way back when: Living in Manchester during the Nineties led Russell to his breakthrough work, Queer As Folk, in 1999 (From left: Charlie Hannun, Aidan Gillen and Craig Kelly in the hit show)

Way back when: Living in Manchester during the Nineties led Russell to his breakthrough work, Queer As Folk, in 1999 (From left: Charlie Hannun, Aidan Gillen and Craig Kelly in the hit show)

Queer as Folk put a hidden truth on television: young British men leading gay lives, lives that were raucous and messy, difficult and loud, loving and glorious.

Quite incredibly, this type of content had never been on television before in the three decades since homosexuality had been de-criminalised. 

Working alongside his long time producing partner Nicola Shindler, Russell followed Queer as Folk with Bob and Rose in 2001 – the story of a gay man who marries a straight woman and has a child with her.

The following year brought an exploration of themes around faith in The Second Coming starring Christopher Eccleston, a work described by Russell’s contemporary Paul Abbott as ‘a television masterpiece’.

In 2004 Russell wrote Casanova, a revisiting of the notorious lover’s memoirs starring David Tennant, and its debut on BBC Three broke the channel record for first run drama.

It was at this time that Russell realised an ambition that he’d harboured for years, all based on an obsession that went right the way back to that childhood living room in Swansea: he got the chance to reinvent Doctor Who.

Previous projects: Russell's 2018 miniseries A Very English Scandal explored the passions, secrets and betrayals between Jeremy Thorpe and Norman Scott through the 60s and 70s

Previous projects: Russell’s 2018 miniseries A Very English Scandal explored the passions, secrets and betrayals between Jeremy Thorpe and Norman Scott through the 60s and 70s

For five years from 2005, Russell worked on Doctor Who; As showrunner and chief writer he re-imagined it for a new century and a sophisticated new audience, building epic stories around big, technicolour characters – adding special effects and production values that set new standards for fantasy drama.

He allowed his imagination to run riot. But more than anything, he brought warmth and heart to Doctor Who, refashioning the show as a drama for the whole family to watch on Saturday teatime – and even in primetime on Christmas Day.

With spin off shows like Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures running alongside it, Doctor Who became a global hit that continues to enthrall audiences to this day

Russell returned to writing about gay themes in his next major work – Cucumber, for Channel 4, and then in 2016 he adapted and produced what he called ‘the gayest ever Midsummer Night’s Dream’ for BBC One.

Two years later came the multi-award winning A Very English Scandal, which explored the passions, secrets and betrayals in the relationship between Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe and Norman Scott through the Sixties and Seventies.

The potential consequences of the rising tide of populism in Britain were examined in Years and Years in 2019.

Russell time-travelled the Lyons family of Manchester fifteen years into the future, landing them in an era of mind-bending new technology against a backdrop of political and economic turmoil.

And then in 2021 came It’s A Sin, Russell’s empathetic rewind to the arrival of AIDS in the Eighties; a timely story about how a mysterious new virus unleashed great waves of fear, denial and death.  

Russell unflinchingly writes about the truth of real life, gives his characters wit and authenticity and his shows undeniable integrity, then defends them to the hilt. As he once said, ‘If it’s true, then it’s true. And you can never back down from that’.’

Iconic: Russell unflinchingly writes about the truth of real life, gives his characters wit and authenticity and his shows undeniable integrity, then defends them to the hilt

Iconic: Russell unflinchingly writes about the truth of real life, gives his characters wit and authenticity and his shows undeniable integrity, then defends them to the hilt