Cucumber: Homosexual Drama

Channel 4 are launching another homosexual-themed series that is likely to stir up controversy 15 years after gay drama Queer as Folk hit the airwaves.

Queer as Folk writer Russell T. Davies has created a new three-strand show that will be broadcast next year.

Cucumber marks a return to homosexual drama for Davies who apart from Queer as Folk and Bob & Rose was responsible for the revamp of Doctor Who although some fans and critics thought that the not always hidden gay themes in the sci-fi show were too much its audience of children.

Cucumber, described by Channel 4 boss Jay Hunt as 'channel-defining', tells the story of gay life across the generations and stars Vincent Franklin, who was PR Stewart Pearson in The Thick of It.

Franklin plays Henry Best, a 40-something gay man, who is splitting up from his boyfriend but is attracted to a younger man played by Freddie Fox, the son of Edward Fox, the actor.

Henry Best ends up sharing a house with a number of young men and in one episode shouts: 'We all live together in a great big gay house, being gay!'

After Cucumber has finished, viewers can switch to E4 for the second strand Banana while the third Tofu will be on the station's website and will tell the stories of 'ordinary people'.

Piers Wenger, Channel 4's head of drama, claimed that Cucumber was 'amazingly warm, incredibly funny and beautifully written.

'In a drama looking at the details of people's sex lives, whether gay or straight people, of course you are required to bust taboos or ask probing questions. There's no doubt people will find it challenging but it's asking intelligent questions in an original way.'Daily Mail.

Is English your first language?

PS Oddly the Mail forgot to include this line from Jay Hunt; 'We wouldn't be Channel 4 if we weren't planning to lightly outrage the Daily Mail.'

Here's the blurb from Channel 4 - it will be broadcast in 'winter', they add helpfully.