Straight or gay, all folk are queer

It's just sooo confusing. There's that nice fluffy Alan Davies playing a gay bloke in Bob and Rose - on primetime TV at that - and it's written by the man who gave us the in-your-face, shove-it-down-your-throat Queer as Folk.

But then Bob falls for a woman; it seems he's not that gay at all. All this after the "ground-breaking" US sitcom Will and Grace, featuring the dullest gay TV character ever (perhaps they could ginger things up with a joint spin-off, Will and Bob?). Where are those reassuring stereotypes when you need them? Whatever happened to the "confirmed bachelor" of old? Bob is an ordinary, not to say slightly nerdy - and of course unthreatening - homosexual who enjoys clubbing and pubbing in Manchester's Canal Street; he even gets the hots for one of his fellow male teachers.

But when Bob meets Rose something indefinable blossoms, even some lower-portions action after a disastrous date when his "I can't even think straight" T-shirt is exposed along with his sexual preference. Staying over in his bed for a supposedly platonic night, Rose leans over him and - poof! - his intendedly honourable member is upstanding.

Ah, so he's bisexual, a guy who likes to have his fairy cake and eat it, as 'twere. Apparently not, he tells a hopeful Rose. All this is in the first episode. And then there's sex in a train toilet. Unbelievable or what? Actually, it's based on a true story, on friends of gay writer Russell P Davies who are now married and have a child.

Even Davies admits he was hard pushed to believe that a gay man - and Bob's real-life equivalent insists he is still a card-carrying, rainbow-flag-waving homosexual - could fall in love with and, more crucially, have sex with a woman. Like most of his ilk, and most heterosexuals, come to that, Davies was a label queen when it came to matters of sexuality.It's the gayest thing he's ever written, he says, promising more revelations to come of pink-hued sexuality residing in the unlikeliest of places in the six-part series. But so far, not all of the drama's messages will be greeted with glee by the boyz' team.

Does Bob and Rose suggest that all a gay man needs to turn him into a "real" chap is a bit of rumpy-pumpy with the right woman? And does this give hope to all those women who harbour sexual thoughts of their best male buddy - with whom they share sex-and-shopping gossip without fear of threat or competition - that they can get their man after all? Hmmm.

Do you really see Madonna dumping Guy Ritchie for Rupert Everett? Bob and Rose is a simple, charming story where love - and a shared sense of humour - conquers all. After all, some straight relationships survive merely through love, understanding, mutual support and little or no sex. Perhaps Bob is the ultimate one-woman man.

There are plenty of people who have strayed (and let's not forget the so-called "strays", those very gay-friendly, hugely curious heterosexuals) from, and back on to, the straight and narrow, with varying degrees of success. Elton John famously married Renate Blauel. Within a year they were living separate lives (divorce followed three years later); he admitted afterwards that as he was gay - and they don't come much gayer than Sir Elt - it never stood a chance.

Anne Heche, the star of such films as Donnie Brasco and Six Days, Seven Nights, walked out with America's most prominent lesbian, Ellen DeGeneres, for three years but renounced the relationship with her marriage to a 27-year-old man two weeks ago. In her autobiography, Call Me Crazy, out, so to speak, this week, she tells of her other personality, a woman called Celestia, who spoke to God in a secret language. She now enthuses about enjoying "normal life". And let's not even talk of the mess that is Michael Barrymore, who was married to wife and manager Cheryl for 20 years before taking up with a man.

Forget lesbian chic and queer pride - all very vieux chapeau, my dear - pansexuality's the thing, according to actor Alan Cumming (unfortunate surname), who shot to stardom state-side playing the sleazy, campy MC in the stage version of Cabaret. He was married to a childhood girlfriend for 10 years before coming out in an American magazine, but he dismisses the moniker "gay" as limiting.

Lesbian comedian and actor Jackie Clune agrees, and loathes the label of bisexuality - "so naff and Seventies". She shocked camper media circles earlier this year when she had an affair with a man. "It wasn't as romantic as Bob and Rose, it was a bit of fun and devilment, really. I'd been through a lot of difficult relationships and playful break-ups over the past 10 years and thought I might go out with a man again. I don't really believe in a fixed sexual identity. I think that's a mark of insecurity." Her now-over affair, though, was with a gay man. I think he liked me because I was a lesbian, she muses.

Which all goes to show that there really is nowt so queer as folk.

Bob and Rose, ITV, Mondays, 9pm.