Production Focus: Tip Toe - Made in Manchester

The 5 part Channel 4 Drama puts the City Centre Stage and adds to the legacy of show runner Russell T Davies and Nicola Shindler’s Quay Street Productions

For the teams at Space Studios Manchester and Screen Manchester, the arrival of Channel 4’s new original drama, Tip Toe, from the multi-award-winning Russell T Davies (It’s A Sin, Queer as Folk, Doctor Who) is an important and exciting moment as both facilities hosted and helped shape the production.

Following Davies’ most recent, extraordinary, and critically acclaimed Channel 4 drama, It’s A Sin, Tip Toe explores the most corrosive forces facing the LGBTQ+ community today, examining the danger as prejudice creeps back into our lives. Problems considered long-gone are returning, toughened and weaponised, until no one knows truth from lies anymore.

The five-part series was filmed in and around Manchester and interiors were shot at Space Studios Manchester.

Studio Manager Dean Sinacola shares some inside information on the making of the series from his point of view.

“Russell has always been a big supporter of Manchester’s own Space Studios so having the opportunity to help bring another one of his scripts to life is always a joy. We had several overlapping interior house sets built on the stage over 18 weeks at the end of 2025. As the show’s heart is in Manchester, the city almost becomes a character in itself, the benefit of the studios being so close to the centre meant the production could work on location and on set the same day which is a rare occurrence.”

In addition to the work done at Space Studios, Screen Manchester, the screen agency for Manchester worked with the production’s Locations department to revisit parts of the city already made iconic in previous Davies series. Most notably, perhaps, was Queer As Folk, which in many ways helped establish Manchester’s now iconic Gay Village, centered on Canal Street, lined with pubs and clubs. Davies has said himself: “It’s my honour to combine my old home, Channel 4, with my second home, Canal Street. I had to write this show because the world is getting stranger, tougher and darker, and frankly, the fight is on.”

Film Office Manager Bobby Cochrane shares details of the brief he and his team worked on and the locations viewers will see as the drama unfolds.

“We worked closely with the production’s locations department to secure a range of locations across the city. Central to these was Canal Street – a vibrant location familiar to many Manchester visitors. Some viewers will almost certainly have visited The Church, one of ‘The Village’s’ most colourful venues, which sits central to the story alongside other hosteleries: Velvet and REM Bar on Sackville Street. We also focused on some of the characterful locations found nearby in the historic Northern Quarter, including Tib Street and The Whiskey Jar on Tariff Street. We also facilitated action sequences on Saxon Street, Miles Platting, which required road closures and additional traffic management support.”

Tip Toe follows Leo and Clive who live next door to each other in Manchester. Leo runs a bar on Canal Street, Clive’s an electrician, with two teenage sons. But just as life should be settling down, the world around them is growing more tense.

Words become weapons, opinions become radicalised, and gradually, two neighbours become deadly enemies in a tense, suburban thriller which challenges everything we consider to be safe. The series, populated with a cast of vibrant characters and underscored with Davies’ trademark wit and deft humour, is an urgent yet gripping tale that brings a spotlight to bear on the re-emergence of an incipient threat.