It's A Sin has helped Channel 4's streaming service to achieve its best ever monthly viewing figures.

The series, created by Queer As Folk writer Russell T Davies, has had 6.5 million views on All 4 since its release last month. It also stars former Hereford Sixth Form College and Hereford College of Arts student Olly Alexander, also known as the frontman for band Years & Years

The drama, which tells the story of a group of young friends living in London through the HIV/Aids crisis in the 1980s and its impact on the LGBT community, helped drive All 4 to its best ever month in January.

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The platform had 91 per cent more views last month compared with January 2020.

Channel 4 labelled It's A Sin All 4's "most binged new series ever", with the first episode becoming the streaming service's most popular drama launch on record.

It has been praised for its candid view of the impact of the disease on the young men during the period.

Ian Katz, chief content officer at Channel 4, said: "The extraordinary performance of It's A Sin is a reminder that powerful drama with something important to say about the world can also be commercially successful.

"It has also demonstrated how our strategy of box-setting shows on All 4 can bring a greater combined linear and digital audience to a show than a traditional release pattern.

"It's been a key driver of All 4 viewing in a month that has seen our digital viewing on our own platforms up by more than 90 per cent compared to the same period last year."

It's A Sin stars Years & Years frontman Olly Alexander with Keeley Hawes, Stephen Fry, Neil Patrick Harris and Omari Douglas.

Since the show hit the streaming service, Olly Alexander has urged people to get an HIV test as he hailed "amazing progress" since the Aids epidemic during which the hit programme is set.

Hereford Times: It's A Sin, from left, Omari Douglas as Roscoe Babatunde, Nathaniel Curtis as Ash Mukherjee, Olly Alexander as Ritchie Tozer, Callum Scott Howells as Colin Morris-Jones, Lydia West as Jill Baxter. Picture: PA Photo/Channel 4 It's A Sin, from left, Omari Douglas as Roscoe Babatunde, Nathaniel Curtis as Ash Mukherjee, Olly Alexander as Ritchie Tozer, Callum Scott Howells as Colin Morris-Jones, Lydia West as Jill Baxter. Picture: PA Photo/Channel 4

Olly, who went to St John's Primary School in Coleford, Monmouth Comprehensive School, Hereford Sixth Form College and Hereford College of Arts, said the experience of portraying Ritchie Tozier in the show had alerted him to the "privilege" of the better testing and healthcare now available.

The Channel 4 series, which focuses on three 18-year-olds who move in together in 1981, has been praised for its candid view of the impact of the disease on the young men's lives over the course of a decade.

"There are a couple of similarities between me and Ritchie but one really big difference is he is living in the 1980s in London as more and more people around him start to get sick and die," Olly said in a video message posted on Twitter.

"There has been amazing progress in the fight against this virus, thanks to the early activists who fought for research, for funding, for humanity," he said, likening these to characters in the show such as Jill Baxter, played by Lydia West, and Ash Mukherjee (Nathaniel Curtis).

Nathaniel J Hall, who features in the show as Donald, has spoken about his own experience of HIV after he contracted the virus aged 16.

"I was given a life expectancy of around 37 to 40 years. To hear that at such a young age was very difficult," he told Sky News.

Hereford Times: Olly Alexander as Ritchie Tozer and Lydia West as Jill Baxter in It's A Sin. Picture: PA Photo/Channel 4 Olly Alexander as Ritchie Tozer and Lydia West as Jill Baxter in It's A Sin. Picture: PA Photo/Channel 4

In the video, Alexander referenced medical advancements such as PrEP, a medication that reduces the risk of catching HIV, as well as effective treatment to prevent those who do test positive from transmitting the virus or getting ill.

He said that "unlike in 1985, it's now super, super easy to order an HIV test".

"You can do it online, you can do it at home and get the results really quickly. Let's celebrate this amazing progress by taking a test and knowing our status."

Russell T Davies has said he "wrestled" with whether to make his new Aids series It's A Sin a docu-drama.

The former Doctor Who writer said he decided to make the show a fiction but was "genuinely sorry" to lose the moment of Diana, Princess of Wales holding the hand of an Aids patient in 1987.

Hereford Times: Russell T Davies, writer of It's A Sin Russell T Davies, writer of It's A Sin

Davies told the PA news agency: "They're all inspired by people, because there's always those lawyers making sure I don't say anyone's actually based on someone.

"But they're not; it is a piece of fiction. I remember at the beginning, writing episode one took a long time because I had to make a very big choice as to whether to make this very factual.

"There's a very good factual docu-drama to be made out of this, literally to be with that doctor who finds the very first case coming in. To be in Downing Street as they start to discuss it. To be in those hospitals as they started to decide to open up Aids wards.

"There's very, very good stuff to be done there and yet, that's just not me.

"I kind of wrestled with that. I was genuinely sorry to lose the moment of Princess Diana taking a man's hand on an Aids ward; it was genuinely life changing for a lot of people.

"It's no small event that, and actually, then you think, 'Oh gosh, you've got to get an actor to play princess Diana' and it starts to become about that.

"It starts to become about the clothes and hair and that's actually all we'd be talking about right now.

"I can guarantee you, all we'd be doing is talking about that Princess Diana actor, so I'm glad I made that decision in the end.

"So once you start to separate it, quite severely, from real life, and say 'these are fictional people' then actually it came alive and, as you write it, you realise what the intent was, which was to create people that you love."

Hereford Times: Olly Alexander, a former Hereford College of Arts student, in the Channel 4 TV show It's a Sin Olly Alexander, a former Hereford College of Arts student, in the Channel 4 TV show It's a Sin

Despite being set 40 years ago, Davies said the similarities with the current coronavirus pandemic are obvious, adding: "It's weird. The PPE (personal protective equipment), and the distancing, and the isolation, and the paranoia, and the rumours.

"Isn't it strange? History just repeats itself; here we are again."

Davies said he is now hopeful the series will educate young people, who do not know about the Aids epidemic in the 1980s, and also encourage them to be safe.

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