Russell T. Davies, creator of the hit series Queer as Folk, is back with a new series on queer life. 

 

The Boys is set in the 80s and follows three young men -- Ritchie, Roscoe, and Colini -- who move to London just as the AIDS epidemic begins. 

 

According to UK's Channel 4: “the young trio, strangers at first, leave home at 18 and head off to London in 1981 with hope and ambition and joy. However, they’re walking straight into a plague that most of the world ignores.”

 

The series will be in five parts, with each episode focusing on a different year.

 

“Year by year, episode by episode, their lives change, as the mystery of a new virus starts as a rumor, then a threat, then a terror, and then something that binds them together in the fight," Channel 4 revealed. "It’s the story of their friends, lovers and families too, especially Jill, the girl who loves them and helps them, and galvanizes them in the battles to come.

 

“Together they will endure the horror of the epidemic, the pain of rejection and the prejudices that gay men faced throughout the decade. There are terrible losses and wonderful friendships. And complex families, pushed to the limit and beyond. This is a series that remembers the boys we lost, and celebrates those lives that burned so brightly.”

 

 

This is not  Davies' first queer-centered project since Queer as Folk. In 2015, Davies created Cucumber and Banana; the former was about a newly single middle-aged gay man named Henry, and the latter an anthology series focusing on different characters within the LGBT community.

 

 

He also wrote the Amazon miniseries, A Very English Scandal, based on the true story of Jeremy Thorpe, a British Liberal who had his former lover, Norman Scott, murdered.

 

 

The Boys will be produced sometime next year. It has not yet been picked up by an American distributor.