It is difficult to imagine that we will ever forget the events of the past year. But pandemics have a habit of being forgotten.

The AIDS epidemic, which spread throughout the world in the 1980s, affected millions but for those who lived through it, like the writer Russell T Davies, there is a sense the era might yet be lost to time.

Davies, though, is a master of memorable telly. He regenerated Doctor Who in blockbusting style and introduced television audiences to the joy of gay sex in unforgettable fashion with Queer As Folk in 1999. Most recently, he made the end of the world totally gripping in the near future drama Years And Years.

All this time, he wanted to write about the AIDS crisis (“I was 18 in 1981, so I’ve been wanting to tell this story for that long, really,” he told Esquire magazine.) Now, he’s finally found a way with It’s A Sin, his gloriously exuberant five-part drama about life lived during the epidemic in 1980s London, which comes to Channel 4 this week.

Channel 4's It’s A Sin review: the new series about the AIDS crisis is landmark television you’ll never forget