Doctor Who writer Russell T Davies has discussed the "ridiculous" age gap with his 27-year-old boyfriend, Australian waiter Oliver Cole, eight years after the death of his husband.
Speaking on the How To Fail with Elizabeth Day podcast, the 63-year-old screenwriter said Cole is "completely respectful" of his late husband Andrew Smith's memory. The couple even watch The Chase together because Smith enjoyed it.
"He's a lot younger, he's 27, which is ridiculous, I know," Davies said. "But he's Australian. They're very grown up aren't they, Australians? They know what's what, he might as well be 40."
He added that Cole had "seen a lot and done a lot and kind of fought his way to get to Britain", describing him as "wonderful" and "gorgeous".
"It's a great lease of life in my life," he said.
Honouring his late husband
Davies was with Smith, a customs officer, for two decades. They entered a civil partnership in December 2012, walking down the aisle to Mr Blue Sky by Electric Light Orchestra.
Smith was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2011 and given a 3 per cent chance of recovery. He died aged 54 on 30 September 2018.
Davies told the podcast how he manages his grief and how Cole respects his efforts to honour Smith. "My lovely boyfriend Oliver is completely respectful, and when I make him sit and watch The Chase, I'm like, 'Andrew loved this. Watch this.' Like that all the time, non-stop," he said.
Reflecting on grief, Davies said: "You just do, don't you? What you realise is everyone does. Find me someone without grief... they're gonna be quite young."
He recalled a 40-year-old friend telling him he had recently attended his first funeral. "I was like, 'Where have you been? What's happened to you? What little gilded cage have you been living in?' It's extraordinary, isn't it? 40."
Davies said there is no "magic solution" to grief, comparing the aftermath to the day after Hiroshima. "It's like the worst thing in the world happened and everyone got up the next day and went to work, 'cause you've got to," he said. "I wish I could sit here and say, 'Ah, do this and think of that.' But there isn't a magic solution to grief, other than the fact that you need to earn a wage and you need to have your tea."
He remembered a friend kindly telling him not to forget to eat after Smith died. "I was like, 'Not a problem.' I'm not gonna forget to eat," Davies said.
Hospital treatment and savings
Davies noted that knowing the end was coming did not lessen the shock. "Maybe it helped that he was ill for eight years, so I knew it was on its way. But I don't think that's true, 'cause it's still a surprise when it happens," he said. "Even in the end, he spent that final September going down and down and down."
He added: "You still wake up some September the 30th, and he's dead. That's shocking. You're not ready for that, no matter what. But I'm lucky I've got lovely family and lovely friends."
Davies also discussed the financial realities of illness, mentioning that in his book he wrote "a ridiculous amount" about affording to be ill. "I get paid very nicely in my job. Not only that, but I save. I've saved and saved and saved for years, for decades. I always save for a rainy day, and then one day it rained," he said.
Smith was treated at the Christie Hospital in Manchester, which Davies described as "one of Europe's biggest and best cancer hospitals" and only a five-minute drive from their home. He said he would sit next to people who had travelled miles and stayed overnight.
"You realise the busiest door in that entire hospital is the door where they sort out people's benefits, because people have been told, 'You can't go back to work. You've gotta have six months off work. You'll have a year off work. You're never going back to work,'" Davies said. "How are they gonna live? We never had that problem, 'cause I'd saved and saved and saved, and he could've stayed ill for 10 years, and we'd have been all right."
He said there was "comfort and almost the elegance of being free to imagine that" loss, but that "it hits you like a brick" anyway.
Writing through grief
Despite his grief, Davies continued working, delivering the final episode of Years and Years a month after Smith's death.
"All those voices in my head, they don't stop. My thinking didn't stop," he said. "Imagine the Years and Years production team, they must have been going 'God, what do we do? Should we get someone else to write it?' I don't think they ever quite told me what a crisis they went through, 'cause they were waiting for the last episode."
The production team dedicated the show to Smith on BBC One. "They were so lovely... But they must have been going, 'What the hell do we do now?' Of course I delivered it, because actually once he's dead, I had nothing else to do."
Last week, Davies revealed his grief and anger also influenced his acclaimed Channel 4 drama It's A Sin, which covered the 1980s AIDS crisis.
"I've written certain death scenes that literally have mimicked things that he's gone through, but on a deeper level, the loss and the anger and the medicine and the boringness of illness, you know, that all seeps into it somewhere," he said. He described Smith dying at 54 as "monstrous" and "just ridiculous".
New relationship with Oliver Cole
Davies made his relationship with Cole, who is also a model, public in a Christmas Day social media post last year, sharing a cosy kitchen selfie with the caption: "Merry Christmas! From me & Oliver."
For Cole's 27th birthday in June, Davies took him to the Doctor Who set for a spin in the iconic time machine. Cole posted a clip online, writing: "27 - Another Year Passes. But it's alright I have a TARDIS x."
A close friend told The Daily Mail that Cole has brought joy to Davies' life. "Oliver has brought a great deal of joy into Russell's life and they make each other genuinely happy," the friend said. "Despite the age gap, they're very much on the same wavelength - this relationship feels like one for the long haul."
Also on the podcast, Gaby recalled a night out where actors mobbed Davies, desperate to work with him. "We were standing there and I saw all these actors gravitating towards you and you were saying, just protect me, protect me. They were all coming up going, what's next? Russell, Russell, what's next?"
Davies laughed, recalling Cole's reaction: "My boyfriend is like, aren't they just nice and friendly? I'm like, yeah."
Davies has often said that if he had a time machine, he would return to the night he and Smith first met. "If I had a Tardis, I would go to Canal Street in Manchester and be a bystander in Cruz 101 on April 12, 1998, as I was standing by the railing, and he was standing at another railing with his friend, and we caught eyes," he said.
