This picturesque West Cork home with separate basement apartment is on the market for €695,000
This picturesque West Cork home with separate basement apartment is on the market for €695,000

Sarah Finnan

‘The Easter holidays are a fresh kind of hell when you have kids and a job’
‘The Easter holidays are a fresh kind of hell when you have kids and a...

Dominique McMullan

Annutri co-founder and award-winning businesswoman Anita Donoghue on the power of a positive mindset
Annutri co-founder and award-winning businesswoman Anita Donoghue on the power of a positive mindset

IMAGE

This Clontarf home was reconfigured to streamline the layout and maximise its views
This Clontarf home was reconfigured to streamline the layout and maximise its views

Megan Burns

6 classic movies worth watching over Easter
6 classic movies worth watching over Easter

Jennifer McShane

The friend zone: How to navigate finding friends as an adult
The friend zone: How to navigate finding friends as an adult

Sarah Gill

Supper Club: Fearne Cotton’s haddock burrito, punchy salsa and homemade guacamole
Supper Club: Fearne Cotton’s haddock burrito, punchy salsa and homemade guacamole

Meg Walker

New life has been breathed into this Victorian Portobello home thanks to a revamp that’s full of personality
New life has been breathed into this Victorian Portobello home thanks to a revamp that’s...

Megan Burns

This rustic four-bedroom home in Westport is on the market for €449,000
This rustic four-bedroom home in Westport is on the market for €449,000

Sarah Finnan

My Career: Archivist at Guinness Eibhlin Colgan
My Career: Archivist at Guinness Eibhlin Colgan

Sarah Finnan

Image / Living / Culture

There was meant to be a sixth and final episode of ‘It’s A Sin’ set in the 2000s


By Lauren Heskin
24th Mar 2021
There was meant to be a sixth and final episode of ‘It’s A Sin’ set in the 2000s

One of the best shows of the year so far, it turns out that 'It’s A Sin' creator Russell T Davies also wanted more than its short five-episode run. Spoilers ahead so only read on if you have finished the series.

While in conversation with AIDS activist Ruth Coker Burks as part of Damian Barr’s Literary Salon. Welsh screenwriter Russell T Davies revealed that he had originally intended for It’s A Sin to be a longer series than the final five episodes that aired earlier this year.

While the eight-episode arch was his initial plan, Channel 4 only offered him four episodes. It came after the BBC and ITV had turned down the chance to develop to the show, there was a sense that a TV show about AIDS would be too difficult a subject matter.

Davies admits that in considering how to his series by half he wondered, “Should I lose a flatmate, should I lose Roscoe, should I lose Colin?” But Davies couldn’t do it and admits that his refusal to cut characters or plotline resulted in it being a “dense piece of work, which I think actually has acted in its favour.” 

The lost episode

Davies pushed for a fifth episode, which he got, but he continued to plot for a sixth and final one, should the opportunity arise. While it was never actually written, Davies had budgeted for it and had a rough sketch of the episode. 

It would revolve around Jill, now 55 and still working in mental and sexual health. “It’s too long a story to describe,” Davies explains, “but you get the feeling that she’s trapped in that world, actually.” She accidentally agrees to give a lecture on the Isle of Wight, where she hasn’t been since Ritchie died.

She decides to go and meet Ritchie’s family, discovering the “sexual abuse at the heart of the Tozer household and  how Valerie [Ritchie’s mother] ended up like she did.” Davies explains that’s why Ritchie had a sister, intended as a connection between Jill and Ritchie’s family after all those years.

It’s A Sin, which spanned the lives of six friends in London spanning the decade of the AIDS crisis from 1981 to 1991 aired on Channel 4 and the entire series can be streamed on All 4 now.