From the archive (season 1): Russell T Davies

Comfort Eating with Grace Dent

The Guardian

Arts, Food

4.5 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 3 November 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Grace is serving up some of her old favourites to curl up to as autumn turns to winter. Award-winning Doctor Who and It’s A Sin screenwriter Russell T Davies tells Grace about some of the most important moments in his life – and the comfort food that has seen him through them. The pair discuss love at first sight, recent loss, and how Woolworth’s pork and egg pie is a metaphor for life itself

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The Guardian.
0:08.3	Hello friends and buckle up because we have a little treat for you at the end of what has been
0:14.6	an absolutely banging season of guests, an autumn mini-series of five of my old favourites. So, as autumn turns to winter,
0:26.3	snuggle up, settling, and wallow in this little selection of the most cockle-warming teeth.
0:34.7	Right, let me dig deep into my bag of comfort eating joy.
0:40.1	Yes, let's go way back to the very beginning.
0:44.9	This delicious morsel was the first episode I ever recorded for comfort eating.
0:51.4	And dare I say, it was a very moving conversation. Here it is,
0:56.6	screenwriter extraordinaire. It's Roscolle Davies.
1:04.4	I'm just enjoying a lunch of buttered toast and fish paste. Yes, the one in the jar. Only God can judge me.
1:16.9	Today I am going to be chatting to a very, very talented man, the much-adored screenwriter Russell T. Davis.
1:32.1	Russell must be nearing the status of national treasure,
1:40.1	I feel. He's perhaps best known for his revival of Doctor Who for the BBC and his groundbreaking gay drama, queer as folk and the absolute genius of years and years.
1:45.2	But it may be his recent drama about AIDS.
1:48.9	It's a sin for Channel 4 that has seared his name into TV royalty.
2:05.9	Russell is known for being a lovely man but I know his life has been far from plain sailing
2:08.6	and I found an unexpected number of parallels
2:12.3	with his life of mine as well.
2:14.6	I can't wait to talk about that.
2:16.7	We're going to be hanging out over a video
2:18.9	call today and I am really looking forward to this. This is a bit of a living legend. Okay, right,
2:26.1	hang in a minute. Actually, this fish paste is pretty pungent.
	...

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