September 1981, and Soft Cell are Number One. Eighteen-year-old Ritchie Tozer (Olly Alexander) is leaving the Isle of Wight to go to university. In London, Roscoe Babatunde (Omari Douglas) walks out of home after his parents make a shocking discovery. And Colin Morris-Jones (Callum Scott Howells) arrives from Wales, to start a new career on Savile Row. The three boys meet, and life will never be the same again. As the year unfolds, the boys - along with fellow student Ash (Nathaniel Curtis) and their best friend Jill (Lydia West) - form a gang and move into a flat, christened the Pink Palace. And there, they start to become who they truly are. But a distant threat on the horizon means that life in the 80s might be all too precious.