Channel 4’s award-winning drama It’s A Sin is set to be adapted into a dance production, with legendary pop duo Pet Shop Boys involved in the project.
Released in 2021, Russell T Davies’s emotional five-part drama followed a group of gay men and their friends as they navigated life in London as the HIV and Aids crisis hit in the 1980s.
Davies will serve as executive producer on the stage show, as will Sink The Pink founder Glyn Fussell and Pet Shop Boys, whose 1978 single gave the TV series its title. Composer Roman GianArthur will create the music, with the support of duo Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe.
The set and video design will be masterminded by Luke Halls Studio, who have previously worked on tours for the Pet Shop Boys, Adele, Dua Lipa and Take That.
Rambert, the UK’s leading contemporary dance company, is developing the "visceral theatre experience”, with its artistic director Benoit Swan Pouffer choreographing and directing.
The production will premiere at the Aviva Studios in Manchester, with the cast and dates set to be announced later this year.
Russell T Davies said in a statement: “It’s A Sin was such a special show for me, and it's one of the greatest honours of my life to have the show transformed by Rambert into something new and exciting.”
“The original TV drama was a landmark series which compellingly presented the reality and tragedy of the Aids crisis to a mass audience,” Tennant and Lowe added. “Our song ‘It’s A Sin’ was contemporary with the crisis and we are proud to be involved as this poignant and important story is interpreted in a different medium.”
It’s A Sin premiered to rave reviews on Channel 4 in 2021. The emotional drama followed a group of housemates living together in a London flat they named The Pink Palace.
With a cast led by Olly Alexander as aspiring actor Ritchie Tozer, the five-part series followed the pals across the course of a decade and charted the devastating impact the HIV and Aids epidemic had on the gay community.
Ritchie’s best friend Jill Baxter, played by Lydia West, volunteered on an underground hotline offering support during the crisis and the character was inspired by one of Davies’ real-life friends, also named Jill.
The screenwriter, who also created Queer as Folk and oversaw the BBC’s mid-noughties revival of Doctor Who, previously revealed he’d been encouraged to turn It’s A Sin into a musical.
Speaking to Radio Times, he said he had turned down the idea as he “just wanted to move on”.
“I didn’t want to wallow,” Davies explained. “It was very strange, with its success – it was very hard to celebrate, because it was this enormous success and yet such a tragic true story … I just didn’t want to stay there.”
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