‘It’s A Sin’: A Joyous And Heartbreaking British Drama Starring Olly Alexander

Omari Douglas as Roscoe, Nathaniel Curtis as Ash, Callum Scott Howells as Colin, Olly Alexander as … [+] Ritchie and Lydia West as Jill in Russell T. Davies’ ‘It’s A Sin’ on Channel Four

Channel Four

It’s A Sin is the new series on Channel Four that everyone was talking about this weekend in the U.K. since it first aired on January 22. That’s no surprise, considering how brilliant this five-part series is. With an amazing cast, It’s A Sin takes you on a rollercoaster of emotions, from the freeing joy of early adulthood to the heartbreaking consequence of AIDS.

It’s A Sin was created by renowned producer and writer Russell T. Davies (Queer as Folk, Years and Years, A Very English Scandal) and tells the story of five friends who begin a new life in London in the 1980s. Ritchie (Years & Years’ Olly Alexander), Colin (Callum Scott Howells), and Roscoe (Omari Douglas) are strangers at first, but soon find themselves, with their best friends Jill (Lydia West) and Ash (Nathaniel Curtis), thrown together, sharing a big apartment. The carefree joy of these first years away from the parental home seems never-ending, until the rise of a new virus. In the ten years covered by the five episodes, the series shows how these five friends grow up in the shadow of the AIDS epidemy.

It’s A Sin is a sexy, at times hilariously funny, story of friendship, love and loss, that will transport viewers to 1980s London with its fashion and great music.

Omari Douglas as Roscoe in ‘It’s A Sin’

Channel Four

Ritchie, Colin and Roscoe each leave their respective home for a new life in London at the start of It’s A Sin. Ritchie is from the Isle of Wight and goes to London to study law initially. By Christmas, he will have decided to change his course of study for drama to become an actor. Colin is a quiet and shy boy from Wales who moves to the capital to become an apprentice on Savile Row. Roscoe, by contrast, is a wild party boy, who flamboyantly storms out of his oppressive religious family home.

At university, Ritchie meets Jill and they quickly become inseparable best friends. She introduces him to Ash. With Roscoe and then Colin, the five soon move in together to their “Pink Palace.” The series shows how the AIDS crisis slowly creeps into their lives. In a poignant monologue Ritchie delivers to the camera, he spews disbelief and misinformation about the disease, reflecting the general opinions on the matter at the time.

Ritchie is one of the most complex characters of the series. When Ritchie brings Jill home, his parents (Keeley Hawes and Shaun Dooley) quickly assume she is his girlfriend. Ritchie is clearly still in the closet when home, the complete opposite to the sexually free and wild Ritchie in London. Olly Alexander captures so vividly this opposition in his character—a character that could say the most begrudging thing and yet no one would ever get mad at him for it.

Olly Alexander and Lydia West in Channel Four’s ‘It’s A Sin’

Ben Blackall 2019/Channel Four

It’s A Sin is an excellent five-part series, which will go down, I’m sure, as one of the best of 2021. The series also stars Neil Patrick Harris, Stephen Fry, and Tracy Ann Oberman. It is overall an incredible cast, especially the five main protagonists, who each capture their own version of devil-may-care attitudes in their determination to live life to its fullest—even Colin, in his own quiet way.

In just a few episodes, Davies manages to make these characters so endearing and lovable, that when the inevitable happens for some of them, it is devastatingly heartbreaking. This is the story of AIDS. It is a painfully tragic moment in history, when a deadly virus killed so many people, and the majority looked away. This is what makes It’s A Sin such an outstanding series, as it shows the horror endured by the epidemy, with all the misinformation and terrible government response that comes with a new disease, and the prejudice gay men faced throughout that decade.

Through the character of Jill though, the series shows those who fought to help and make people aware of this deadly disease. Jill, in fact, is based on a friend of Davies, Jill Nalder, who plays the fictional Jill’s mother on screen. Jill, played by Lydia West, has one of the most poignant scenes of the series, in the last episode, when she faces the mother of her best friend (Keeley Hawes). The tears will start falling (if you hadn’t been balling your eyes out already) and there is nothing you’ll be able to do about it.

It’s A Sin is now available to view on Channel Four in the U.K. and is due to be released in the U.S. on HBO.