Cucumber (TV series)

Development

Cucumber was initially conceived during Davies' tenure as showrunner of Doctor Who. Envisioned as a spiritual sequel to the seminal 1999–2000 Channel 4 series Queer as Folk, More Gay Men, as it was then called, was to focus on middle-aged gay men, and had its genesis from the question "why are so many gay men glad when we split up?" that his friend Carl Austin had asked him in 2001. The show was initially due to enter production in 2006, but the success of the revival of Doctor Who indefinitely delayed the series. By March 2007, Davies had fleshed out the initial episode, and explained a pivotal scene in correspondence with journalist Benjamin Cook:

I can imagine a man who is so enraged by something tiny—the fact that his boyfriend won't learn to swim—that he goes into a rage so great that, in one night, his entire life falls apart. It's not about the learning to swim at all, of course, it's about the way that your mind can fix on something small and use it as a gateway to a whole world of anger and pain… If I write the Learn To Swim scene well—and it could be the spine of the whole drama—then I will be saying something about gay men, about couples, about communications, about anger."

By 2008, More Gay Men was among the list of series that Davies wanted to produce after moving to Los Angeles, California, along with an American adaptation of Bob & Rose. Cucumber had been picked up by the American cable network Showtime and BBC Worldwide and entered into pre-production in July 2011, although pre-production was suspended a month later after his boyfriend Andrew Smith was diagnosed with a brain tumour, prompting Davies to return to Manchester so Smith could undergo chemotherapy nearer to their families.

Cucumber was later picked up by Channel 4 to be produced by Davies' former colleague Nicola Shindler and the Red Production Company. The show was Davies' first Channel 4 series in over a decade; Davies had an acrimonious dispute with the channel after a decision to green light production on a Queer as Folk spinoff and The Second Coming was reversed by new executive personnel. Former Doctor Who producer Piers Wenger convinced Davies to return to the channel due to the political nature of the show, which had by then expanded to include its sister shows Banana and Tofu. The three series refer to a urological scale of erection hardness, which consists of tofu, peeled banana, banana, and cucumber, which is alluded to in the show's opening narration.

Reception

Writing in The Guardian, Sam Wollaston argued that the debut of the Cucumber/Banana/Tofu trilogy was the "television event of the week", and that despite the show being "gloriously, triumphantly, explicitly gay", he "never once felt left out" as a heterosexual viewer. Mark Lawson said that the show had a wider theme: "the broader genre of respectability meltdown, as Henry is accelerated from smug dullness to scenes featuring police intervention, furious colleagues and social humiliation".

Both Lawson and Theo Merz (writing in the Daily Telegraph) compare the Cucumber trilogy to Davies' Queer as Folk—Lawson argues that while Cucumber and Banana are "notably sexually graphic", the times have changed: "Queer as Folk was made at a time when campaigners were fighting to reduce the age of gay sexual consent from 18 to 16, while Davies’ latest shows are screening in an era when men and women can legally marry each other", and therefore the depictions of explicit sexual themes are less likely to offend. Merz agrees, stating that Cucumber and Banana "feel less dangerous, and so less exciting than the earlier Queer as Folk"; Merz also argues that Cucumber has wider latitude to represent more varied gay characters as it is not carrying the burden of being the only show on television representing gay life.

Writing in the Telegraph, Gerard O'Donovan argued that the first episode succeeded ("In terms of comedy it worked brilliantly, the brio and louche wit of Davies’s writing bringing a rare energy and grit to the unfolding chaos") but Michael Hogan, also writing in the Telegraph, said that after watching the third episode, he was "disappointed" and could not find much warmth in the protagonist, Henry.

The series was also positively reviewed in The Independent, where Ellen E. Jones stated: "In Davies's hands, the tragi-comedy of middle-aged desperation is so sad, but so, very, very funny". Jones also argued that the appeal of the show was "universal" rather than just limited to a gay audience.

International broadcasts

Both Cucumber and Banana premiered in the United States on Logo on April 13, 2015 and were watched by a low 55,000 viewers.

Both series aired in Australia on SBS Television and are also available to stream on Stan.

All episodes of Cucumber aired in the Netherlands on NPO3 during Gay Week. At the same time Banana was available to watch on the broadcaster's website.

In Canada, Cucumber and Banana were broadcast on OutTV in spring 2015.

The series is also available on TVNZ OnDemand in New Zealand.

The series aired in Germany as a dubbed version with the first Episode on WDR on July 30, 2016 and was watched by 70,000 viewers.