its a sin viewers react© Photo: Sky

Viewers praise new drama It's A Sin after 'powerful' and 'devastating' first episode

Did you tune into the new Channel 4 drama?

TV & Film Writer
January 23, 2021

It's A Sin premiered on Friday evening and it seems that the new drama series has everyone talking. The Channel 4 series, which stars Keeley Hawes, Neil Patrick Harris and Stephen Fry, received high praise from many watching at home with many calling the first episode 'powerful' and 'devastating'.

MORE: It's a Sin: meet the cast of the Channel 4 drama 

Taking to social media, viewers shared what it meant to them to see positive LGBTQ+ representation on screen and lauded the show's depiction of life in the 1980s during the AIDs crisis.

One person commented: "It's A Sin is arguably one of my favourite pieces of TV in a long time- such fantastic, unabashedly proud representation and dealing with an incredibly important topic. I can only imagine how much this show will mean to so many people, both young and old."

WATCH: Check out the trailer for new drama It's a Sin

"#ItsASin is powerful, emotional and devastating TV. Incredible view of the start of HIV/AIDS and the heartbreaking effects it wreaked," another said. "The shame and stigma was stifling and at one point took my breath away followed by tears. Brilliant and impactful TV again from Russell T Davies."

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A third wrote: "Am still reeling from #ItsASin. It's staggering that stories like this are so rarely told […] I find it emotional to be taken back to the shame and terror that shaped my own relationship with my sexuality."

The five-part series tells the story of 18-year-old Ritchie Tozer, played by Years & Years frontman Olly Alexander, who moves to London from the Isle of Wight to start a new life as an actor.

© Photo: Channel 4

Have you tuned into the new Channel 4 drama?

Channel 4's official synopsis reads: "Ritchie, Roscoe and Colin are young lads, strangers at first, leaving home at 18 and heading off to London in 1981 with hope and ambition and joy… and walking straight into a plague that most of the world ignores.

"Year by year, episode by episode, their lives change, as the mystery of a new virus starts as a rumour, then a threat, then a terror, and then something that binds them together in the fight." 

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