MONDO EXTRAS

Russell T. Davies: Honestly, I don't tend to fancy actors. Actors are mad -- who'd be an actor? I don't think I've ever slept with an actor. No, just thought about it, I haven't. I remember in a show I wrote for the BBC, Century Falls, the actor playing the manservant had the best arse I'd ever seen. Career highlight. No, I only looked. And there was one actor in The Grand I fancied like mad -- but I've just realised that everyone, and especially actors, does an internet search for their own name, and I'm not letting them find me out!

della femina: On Queer as Folk, Stuart makes good use of the Internet and, in particular, IRC (Internet Relay Chat). Did you have to do any, er, research on how one goes about hooking up with potential sex partners online?

Russell T. Davies: Um, strangely I seemed to know most of the relevant information. Which is why I wrote it, can't bear bloody research! The most research I did was on supermarkets -- most of which I ditched, it was too mad! There's a sitcom waiting to happen there. In Asda, if you work in the office, you're given a red baseball cap. You're allowed to put the cap on once a day, and when you do, your fellow workers can't interrupt you for two hours. If I put that in a script, they'd say I'm mad. I won't even bother you with the Fruit Identification Programme.

There you go, but tell you what, while I'm feeling chatty...I saw one question on your QAF forum, before it was archived, which asked, "What was QAF2 like before Donna was written out?" Good question, no one's ever asked that -- d'you mind if I rattle on about that? Talking about Misfits has sent me into flashback mode.

In the original QAF2, there was a lot less Dazz -- he filled the space Donna left. Basically, it picked up on the hint in [the first series], that Donna's mum had a boyfriend who was a bit dodgy, maybe even fancying Donna. That got a bit worse -- just a bit, still only hints -- but that story gave a chance for Nathan to do something for Donna for once, to show Nathan growing up and taking responsibility for others at last. So he packs Donna's bags and moves her into Hazel's! Resulting in a lovely but vile scene between Donna and Bernard's revolting sixty-year-old boyfriend, Raymondo: "Who's the fish?" Yuck! As you can see, rewrites always do you good, cos I loved the extra Nathan/Dazz stuff in the end, particularly Nathan and his mum in the kitchen after dinner.