My name is Nathaniel J. Hall.

What I’ve been reflecting on is the journey of HIV—how its story has evolved through different eras—and how our cultural, social, and artistic responses have mirrored that journey. Coming from a Western perspective, there’s this vast, haunting legacy of work about HIV and AIDS from the ’80s and ’90s. Back then, it was devastation, loss, and grief. Then came 1996, the “Lazarus effect,” when antiretroviral medication changed everything. Suddenly, people weren’t dying in the same numbers, though the side effects were brutal. It wasn’t a cure, but it was hope—something new, something different.

I was diagnosed not long after that pivotal moment, in 2003. It had been only seven or eight years since the medical world shifted, and I was in the “medicated era.” There was still a lot of heaviness and lot of fear surrounding HIV. The protocol then was to wait before starting medication—to hold off until your immune system showed signs of decline because the treatments were tough on the body. That waiting period felt like a shadow hanging over you, this constant, silent tension.

Fast forward to 2017, we entered a third era with the advent of PrEP and the global embrace of U=U—Undetectable equals Untransmittable. This was a revolution. For people living with HIV, it shattered the narrative of danger, of “infectiousness.” It changed how we saw ourselves, and society began to see us.

But when I was diagnosed in 2003, I was just 16. At 16, I didn’t understand what HIV was, let alone how to navigate the world with it. For the next 15 years, I carried it like a silent weight. And it wasn’t until 2017—when everything in my life was crumbling—that I realised something was missing—my story. The story of someone diagnosed young, someone who was alive and navigating this new era of HIV—it wasn’t out there anywhere.

Back when I was first diagnosed, I devoured everything I could about HIV. I studied theatre at university, reading plays like Angels in America and The Normal Heart. These stories were powerful and—but they were all about death. I was alive, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t struggling. There was no map for my experience, no space to say, “I’m here, I’m alive, and I’m carrying this with me.”

For 15 years, I kept it from almost everyone. I hadn’t told my family. I’d only shared it with a handful of people. The silence was suffocating.

By 2017, I hit rock bottom. I was in a toxic, abusive relationship, abusing drugs and alcohol and spiralling into shame. That’s when I decided: enough. I needed to tell my story, not for anyone else but for me. That’s when I started writing First Time.

The show is about the moment my life changed—about contracting HIV from my first sexual experience at 16. That moment still feels surreal. I’d known I was gay for a while, probably since I was 14 or 15. But growing up under Section 28 in a profoundly homophobic school, everything was secret. Then, that summer, I met someone. He was older, in his mid-20s, confident, and openly gay. He was everything I wanted to be.

When it happened—my first time—it felt like a rite of passage. We were at his flat, and I remember him opening a safer sex kit and some poppers. But no condom. He said he’d been tested recently, and at 16, I didn’t know how to say no. Sex ed hadn’t taught me about consent or empowerment—it had just taught me to be afraid.

It was already too late when my parents found out about the relationship. My mum sat me down and told me she’d always known I was gay. She meant well, but I felt crumbling inside even then. I didn’t know it yet, but HIV had already become part of my story.

That same summer, I got sick. Violently ill. I lost nearly two stone while on holiday with my family. We thought it was a waterborne virus, and when I got back, the doctor didn’t even ask about sex. Why would they? I was just a kid. But now, I know—that was seroconversion.

I started college shortly after, but I am still unwell. Eventually, I noticed symptoms that took me to the GUM clinic. I refused the HIV test at first—multiple times. The fear of knowing was too great. But eventually, I said yes.

Two weeks later, the results came back. HIV-positive. I was two weeks shy of my 17th birthday.

For five years, I lived with that knowledge but without medication. The protocol was to wait until your CD4 count dropped below 250. But those five years were heavy. I was trying to navigate the gay world as a young man with this constant fear of being infectious. I entered an eight-year relationship, terrified that I might pass it on. I didn’t know how to talk about it. I didn’t know how to let people in.

When I finally started medication, it marked a shift, but the stigma was still there. I kept it mostly to myself, shaping every part of me—how I saw myself, how I let others see me, and how much of my life I kept hidden.

Then, in 2017, I broke. I started writing First Time to reclaim my voice and my story. I thought it would be a small project, a personal release. But when it premiered on World AIDS Day 2018, it became so much more. Suddenly, I was on BBC Breakfast, on the radio, and in newspapers. My little story—one I’d hidden for so long—resonated with many people.

The First Time changed everything for me. It was the first time I allowed myself to be fully seen, and it even led to new opportunities, like working with Russell T. Davies on It’s a Sin. That felt like coming full circle—a way to give back to a conversation that had profoundly shaped my life.

HIV doesn’t define me, but it has shaped me. Living with it has taught me resilience, vulnerability, and the power of storytelling. PrEP, U=U, and medication have transformed what it means to live with HIV today, but the emotional scars—the stigma, the shame—don’t disappear overnight. That’s why I keep telling my story.

Because I believe we need to rewrite the narrative not just for me but for everyone. HIV isn’t the end of the story—it’s just one part of it. Together, we can break the silence and show the world who we are: human, flawed, alive, and thriving.