QUEER AS FOLK UK
Queer As Folk first hit the screens of the UK on Channel 4 in February 1998 with a daring billboard campaign and an underground expectation unprecedented for a drama on the fourth channel. Even before the show had aired, the mainly homophobic British media was in frenzy. The middle ground papers had a field day and when the show aired they were not disappointed.

The storyline centres around three completely different gay men, different ages, and different classes and at very different stages of coming out.

Manchester has for a long time been a very tolerant city with its openly gay councillors and a town hall that isn? afraid to fly the rainbow flag. This has led to the phenomenon that is Canal Street.

Canal Street many years ago was a run down back street just on the edge of the city centre famous for its playboy club and the main red light area. Rarely would it be busy at night.

Then one by one the village developed into a gay centre to rival the world. There are at last count 50 or more gay bars, gay clubs, gay taxi firms, gay hairdressers, gay solicitors, gay doctors, etc, in fact a complete gay community based on two or three streets. This became the model for regeneration in many cities redeveloping the warehouses and run down mills of which Manchester has abundance.

So we have this fabulous back drop to one of the best dramas ever written, breaking new ground showing gay sex like it has never been shown before. Introducing words like rimming to the straight world and generally making people sit up and realise that there is this big community in Manchester and it is queer as anything.

Originally titled Queer As Fuck, it really didn? need a title like that to shock and compel the audience. This really was a true tale of gay folk in Manchester those who identified with the characters saw it for what it was, those who couldn? handle it, never knew the gay scene was like that.

The funny thing is that the drama sort to imitate Canal Street and now Queer As Folk is deeply embedded in Canal Street. In one of the scenes a bar called Dante? is mentioned as a completely fictitious bar to go with all the familiar names on Canal Street. Today guess what they have just opened a bar called Dante?.

Somehow even now when you hear the Q.A.F theme tune played in a bar that was used for the filming or a passing gay tourist tells you they came to Canal Street because they have seen the series, a little shudder goes down the back of your neck.

The series has been shown in so many countries it? impossible to keep up but in every country in the world some has seen Queer As Folk, on TV, at special screenings or on DVD and video.

The name Queer As Folk originated from the British saying "There's 'nout so queer as folk" which meant there's nothing as strange as people. Nothing whatsoever to do with being gay or homosexual.

Some of the reasons why Queer As Folk was "dropped" was that some scenes were extremely explicit and also one of the actors in the series was underage. The UK equivalent of Justin NA was around 15 years old.

I live in the UK and I never saw Queer As Folk here but I have seen the American version. I will see the UK version once I find someone with the video's. I also heard recently from someone working for channel 4 in the UK that their has been talk of redoing the series.

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