Patrick Gale: Orange Is Not The Only Shirt

Patrick Gale, the acclaimed novelist behind A Place Called Winter and A Perfectly Good Man, is behind a new script for the BBC. A two-parter called Man in An Orange Shirt, the drama is set in both the Forties and the present day, and involves two interconnecting love stories. But the corporation’s decision to “upgrade” the show from BBC2 to BBC1 has led to some severe cuts.

“It’s funny,” Gale told us. “Initially they said they wanted it to be no-holds barred, and really out there. On BBC2 I could have done what I liked post-watershed... but suddenly I’ve been told ‘Can you take that out?’ It’s mainly censorship in a really middle-class way, mainly to do with language, I had to take a lot of the f***s out.”

“The word or the act?” The Londoner asked.

“Both, actually,” Gale chuckled.

Graphic scenes involving same-sex couples, he said, have been toned down despite his objections. “It’s not like Russell T Davies and all his fluffy stuff,” he said. “I want to show them having a hard time, showing interaction with their straight friends and their mothers.”...

Evening Standard.

Shakespeare: Only An Idiot

[A Midsummer Night's Dream] tells of four young loves, whose longing for each other is hampered by the meddling Puck, dispensing a love-potion at the direction of Oberon, the fairy king.

But forget all that. Thanks to the megalomania of Russell T Davies and the encouragement of our state broadcaster, the original play has been slung, unceremoniously out of the window of Broadcasting House.

Russell T Davies has reworked this comedy I love to include a number of same-sex relationships including a lesbian kiss, to show children 'the real world'

The ending Shakespeare wrote for our pleasure was a group wedding, with the lovers' reconciled, and married alongside Theseus and Hippolyta.

He said: 'It's such a happy ending and it's very male/female, male/female. I wanted to have a man with a man, a man who was dressed as a woman with a man, and a woman with a woman. Because its 2016, that's the world now. And I want children to come and watch this and see the real world in the middle of this fantasy.'

The magical wood - just wasn't magical enough... and the young lovers? Way too heterosexual.

That's the trouble with Shakespeare you see? He was just too straight.

400 years after his death, he needs to get with the times... or the the gay times at the very least.

Davies has reworked this comedy I love to include a number of same-sex relationships including a lesbian kiss, to show children 'the real world'.

Believe me, children see enough of the real world every day without needing it to be contrived into Shakespeare at night.

My kids have mates with two mums, two dads, step-siblings and families only loosely connected by finances. They are growing up into a world where unless you are gender fluid, you're old news.

Davies said 'it's 2016; that's the world now,' adding: 'Only idiots might have a problem with that.'

Katie Hopkins, Daily Mail.

That line again... IT'S 2016, ONLY IDIOTS MIGHT HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THAT!

PS It's on 'at the end of May'.

Thought For The Day: Russell T Davies

“The assumption is that teenage gay men now are guilt-free hedonists, while men of my generation were closeted, ashamed and struggling with their sexuality. But teenagers are never happy. Not now and certainly not when I was a teenager.”

The Guardian.

Love Russell, but for misery wait til you get to an adult!

Russell T Davies: On Mainstreaming

At the beginning of Cucumber, someone says, “the whole world is a gay bar now,” Has the mainstreaming of gay culture made it harder to write shows about queer people?

There is a mainstreaming, and I think that’s magnificent. Certainly in Britain and in America, there are all sorts of gay stories cropping up. We will always complain that there could be more—it’s natural for a minority to complain that we’re not visible enough. At the same time, we’re getting more and more niche broadcasting, which demands shows for gay people, for middle-aged white women, for ethnic communities. We’re at a funny time of transition where no one’s quite sure if we’re searching for a mass audience or for niche audiences. In the end, though, people like a good story, and if you’re exploring characters that haven’t been explored in those ways before, then people will like that...

There are literal differences between our generations now. If you’re 20 years old, you are legal, you can marry, you’re on a completely equal legal footing. It’s not like I was closeted when I was young, but it was a different world. The generations keep on changing. At the same time, I wanted to explore how, actually, things don’t change that much. You’ve got equality. You can get married. The law’s on your side. That doesn’t make you happy. That’s never made straight teenagers happy. They can be white and wealthy, and they’re still not happy. So, I wanted to show that young, gay people are beleaguered by problems. They’re just as fantastically, hilariously full of problems as they’ve ever been...

Russell T Davies interviewed by Slate as Cucumber is finally shown in the States.

Cucumber: Gagging On It

There's been such an avalanche of articles about Cucumber in the last week, Fagburn's finding it hard to keep up.

Please bear (bare?) with me... x

The Independent: Why Indeed?

Warning: This article in The Independent includes the usual victim-loving nonsense about Alan Turing (he didn't crack The Enigma Code, and 'chemical castration' is a meaningless term) and the Nazis (Equating the imprisonment of thousands of gay men with the systematic extermination of millions of Jews is morally obscene).

Russell T Davies: Bananas

Davies continued with his first draft of Cucumber. The spark for it had been unexpected: Graham Norton.

“He shamed me into doing it,” Davies hoots. “Shamed me on Radio 2, live on air, while I was doing a promo for Doctor Who. ‘Why don’t you write something proper, about real gay men, again?’ he said. ‘Like Queer as Folk.’ I walked across Manchester’s MediaCity feeling chastised. But he was right. Graham Norton was right, thank God.”

Ten years before, Queer as Folk had been Davies’s calling card to the wider world. Having spent the previous decade writing Children’s Ward, Why Don’t You?, The Grand and Dark Season – which starred a young Kate Winslet – Queer as Folk was clearly in a different league: something so unmistakably from the heart, wildly inventive, joyous, angry, filthy and funny that it changed people’s ideas of “gay drama” overnight. It was genuinely revolutionary.

“Before it went out, everyone thought it was going to be Channel 4’s worthy gay drama,” Davies recalls. “All vegan protesters and Aids. The only gay characters we’d had [on British TV] before were ones dying on EastEnders. People weren’t expecting this.”

Caitlin Moran profiles the mighty RTD in The Sunday Times.

Cucumber Banana Tofu: Coming Soon

Can't wait!

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.

Russell T Davies: Soap Dish

“I actually think soaps are in trouble, and we need to be careful – as ratings slide slowly downwards, you can now see a landscape in ten years' time where they won’t exist any more, or they will be substantially reduced."

“And they contain a vast amount of our gay characters. Without the soaps, you’ll find those stats that count gay visibility on screen will plummet. So I wouldn’t take them for granted.”

“We’re gay, so we tend to notice the gay stuff, which means that we can miss the fact that whole nights of TV can sail past without a single gay person in sight.

“If you took away the soaps, then the schedules would be even more empty.”

“Don’t just look at where we are, look at where we’re not.

"There are whole vast empires where we don’t exist – there’s not a single gay person in Star Wars, in Star Trek, in Disney, in Pixar, and this stuff isn’t old, it remains current. There’s still a long way to go.”

RTD in an interview with Attitude, quoted in the Mirror.

After an elephantine pregnancy, our Russell's gay TV thing, Cucumber/Banana, is scheduled for 2015. *Drums fingers*

Cucumber: I Say Banana

Vincent Franklin, Cyril Nri, Julie Hesmondhalgh, Freddie Fox, Fisayo Akinade, Con O’Neill, James Murray and Ceallach Spellman confirmed to star in Cucumber and Banana on Channel 4 and E4.

Star of The Thick of It and Twenty Twelve, Vincent Franklin will join Coronation Street’s Julie Hesmondhalgh in the cast of new Channel 4 drama series Cucumber, from the multi BAFTA award-winning writer of Queer As Folk and Doctor Who, Russell T Davies.

Filming in Manchester has begun on Cucumber (8 x 60’) for broadcast on Channel 4 in 2015, with E4 series Banana (8 x 30’) to start production next month. The cast also includes; Cyril Nri (The Bill), Freddie Fox (Parade’s End), Fisayo Akinade (Fresh Meat), Con O’Neill (Uncle), James Murray (Primeval) and Ceallach Spellman (Waterloo Road).

Life for 46-year-old Henry (Vincent Franklin) and his boyfriend Lance (Cyril Nri) is comfortable and settled. But after the most disastrous date night in history - involving a threesome, two police cars, and Boney M - Henry's old life shatters, and his new life begins...

With the same ferocious wit, startling honesty and heartfelt warmth that made Queer As Folk a landmark Channel 4 series, Cucumber will explore the passions and pitfalls of 21st century gay life for Henry, Lance and co, while on E4, Banana will follow the individual lives of characters orbiting around Henry’s world. On 4oD, Tofu will be an anarchic and entertaining factual series about sex - from gay to straight, and anything in between - inspired by the dramas each week...

Channel 4 press office.

Can't wait.

Outnorthwest: It's Grim Up North

“I’m very sad to hear that this is the last issue of outnorthwest. I’ll miss it! Maybe it’s more of an online world now, but let me tell you young ‘uns, in days gone by, magazines like this were all we had. A helping hand. A light in the dark. A valuable resource. The only place you could get the vital information you needed, sometimes, these pages could actually be lifesavers. And most of all, it was a great big laugh!

“I’d like to say thanks to Grahame and his dedicated teams over the years, who’ve put so much love and imagination into these pages. Job well done, boys and girls! And happy memories indeed. Now go and get some rest, you deserve it.”

Russell! x

Russell T Davies pays tribute to outnorthwest, which is closing after 14 years.

Sunday Times: 100

Tory cunt.

My Tommy!

Touched by the hand of god.

And we're only up to H!

Exciting times, dudes, exciting times...

Russell T Davies: Cucumber!

"I once read about a scientific institute which had studied the male erection. It divided the hard-on into four categories, from soft to hard. One, tofu. Two, peeled banana. Three, banana. And four, cucumber. Right there and then, I knew I had my drama. And it's a joy to be back with Channel 4 and RED, to tell these stories."

Russell T Davies, from an exciting Channel 4 press release.

Great.

We've been promised these by RTD for Hung-Like-A-Donkey's Years.

He's been talking about doing something on older gay men ever since the end of Queer As Folk, and firmed things up way back in 2007.

First it was with the BBC, then Hollywood, blah blah, stuck in development hell. 

Anyway should be with us late next year.

So you can keep your ruddy Dr Who 50th anniversary specials and your Amercian "dramedy", Looking!

This image is from the Mirror. >>>

And seeing as they've just ripped off the press release, as did everyone else in medialand, I will too.

"Fifteen years after Queer As Folk exploded on to the screen, award-winning writer Russell T Davies is back with Cucumber and Banana – two new drama series for Channel 4 and E4 exploring the passions and pitfalls of 21st century gay life. Tofu, a factual web series, is an anarchic online guide to sex inspired by the dramas each week."

Cucumber - an 8 X 60’ series for Channel 4 - follows 46 year old Henry and his long-suffering boyfriend Lance. Life for Henry and Lance is comfortable and settled. But after the most disastrous date night in history - involving a death, a threesome, two police cars and the Glee Christmas Album - Henry's old life shatters, and his new life begins.

On E4, Banana (8 X 30’) follows the lives of characters orbiting around Henry in Cucumber. From young lesbian Scotty's first love, to 19 year old Dean's mysterious family secrets, Banana covers 50 shades of gay, and beyond.

With the same ferocious wit, startling honesty and heartfelt warmth that made Queer As Folka landmark series, Cucumber and Banana will explore the heartbreak and joy of modern sex lives - from gay to straight, and anything in between.* 

Tofu, meanwhile, extends the experience online with eight factual episodes navigating the landscape of 21st Century sex in its own inimitable way. Offering real people the chance to share their unique stories of sexual experiences, Tofu is an anarchic and entertaining look at sex.

* The Mirror put this in quotes and began; "An insider revealed..." 

Journalism!

Russell T Davies: Nowt So Queer As Facts

You couldn't write a feature called Happy 50th Birthday Russell T Davies: 50 Reasons Why Whovians And Telly Fans Love The Dr Who Producer without mentioning the seminal Queer as Folk, could you?
Well the Mirror tried their best today.
Here's the bit from their 50 facts about RTD where they mention QAF...

6. Murray Gold  
Everybody knows the stunningly distinctive theme, but Dr Who’s incidental music has on occasion been as infamous as it’s wobbling sets. Fortunately, Russell T has some talented friends. Having already worked with the writer on Queer as Folk, Casanova and the Second Coming, Murray Gold may have been a natural choice – but what an inspired one. Still with the show, he has produced a varied array of music for each episode perfectly matching Davies and other writers’ diverse stories.

Err, and that's it!
Quite a feat.
Whatever, happy fiftieth birthday Gay/Time Lord Russell, a true tellybox legend and one of the nicest people in showbiz.

PS I wonder what happened to Russell's TV series about a middle-aged gay couple, Cucumbers?

Thought For The Day: Steven Moffat

“It’s so unfair! Dippy, left-wing, PC, liberal me - and suddenly I’ve been given the sexual politics of Connery in Goldfinger but with neither the grace nor the looks. I’m ugly Sixties Bond - how much worse can you get?
“Yet I am not like that! It’s men I can’t stand. Gays and geeks are OK, but real men are awful. Those blokes who say: ‘How does your car hold the road?’ And you’re thinking ‘Gravity!’ And don’t ask me about football!”

Steven Moffat, in The Times, on accusations of male chauvinism and that his female characters were "tired old tropes."
Mr Moffat - writer of Dr Who and Sherlock, and a notorious heterosexual - is, alongside Russell T Davies and Mark Gatiss, part of the holy trinity of the BBC's Saturday evening TV.
Next Sunday he will receive a Special Award at the Baftas in recognition of his outstanding creative writing contribution to television.

George And Bernard Shaw: Modern Family

'AXED BBC1 sitcom My Family is set to be replaced with a show about two middle-aged gay men – with Robert Lindsay back in a lead role.
Beeb bosses believe George and Bernard Shaw, which also stars Richard Griffiths, will fill the void left by the long-running show now in its final series.
'Described as a “quirky and warm comedy about a gay couple”, filming is due to start in the autumn. A TV source said: “Yes, it’s slightly less than conventional in terms of the family set-up but it’s the 21st Century and things move on.
'“The BBC have commissioned a pilot and will make the call once it’s all wrapped up. But all signs point towards this being a perfect prime-time vehicle. The two big names involved show this could be very special.”'

The Daily Mirror.
This is interesting - if it happens.
Apparently it got put on the backburner cause - I guess - Russell T Davies is planning something similar - MGM/Cucumbers.
Richard Wilson was going to be one of the old gayers.
I wonder why.
But nice to see Richard Griffiths got that part - he's good at playing old fruits.
It's written by John Finnemore who writes David Mitchell's gags and Cabin Pressure.
Can't be bad.

Holy Moly: Hmm...

"Daily Mail readers will have spewed All-Bran this morning with the news that the BBC is to place a new sitcom about two gay men who love each other, in the slot previously occupied by cosy family chuckle-fest My Family. And it’s got the same actor in it! Cover the vicar’s eyes...
"George And Bernard Shaw (hmm) will star Robert Lindsay and the always brilliant Richard Griffiths will star in what’s being described as a “quirky and warm comedy about a gay couple”, with filming on the pilot set to start this Autumn.
"This follows the Beeb’s decision to axe the long running My Family, presumably after its writers finally ran out of scenarios where one of them could bring an unsuitable boyfriend home or the dad/dentist could slightly embarrass them with a social faux pas...

Hmm, this is off Holy Moly .
I'm presuming this is the much-vauted Russell T Davies sit-com formerly known as "Cucumber".
Can't see it in The Daily Mail.
Anyone?

Update: No it's not!

Torchwood: Uncut?

There's been much kerfuffle this week over this story;
"JOHN Barrowman has clashed with the BBC by defending Torchwood's axed explicit gay sex scene - saying it was NOT gratuitous."
A word of warning though - THIS IS IN THE SUN!!!
IT MAY NOT BE TRUE!
They love to sensationalise and - quite literally - sex stories up.
You'd hope just two months after that "Pre-watershed gay TV kiss ban" (that never existed and was never proposed), people might be a bit more sceptical.
It was The Sun what broke it last weekend;
Barrowman bonk with a barman is banned by Beeb
"It has already been shown on US cable channel Starz, which co-funded the drama. But shocked Beeb bosses have cut it from the BBC1 version, fearing an avalanche of complaints from viewers..."
The Sun can only quote "an insider" - which means they may have made it up.
Or hacked someone's mobile phone.
Who can say.
Mr Ian Sider told them;
"It wasn't that it was a gay scene that worried people, but just the fact it was such an explicit sex scene, full stop.
"You can get away with scenes like that on American cable channels, but you can't on primetime BBC1."
A BBC spokesperson has said;
“The UK and US versions of Torchwood are slightly different. However these differences do not change the story in any way and the strong storylines are first and foremost to the series.”
Torchwood is shown after the watershed - the episode in question will be shown on BBC 1 next week.

Update: A certain Russell T Davies has emailed GT:
"Now be calm.
“There is a cut in Ep.3 to simultaneous gay AND straight sex scenes. As if I’d let them cut gay sex alone! Dear God. Have faith! They’re cut because the BBC thinks that, unusually, a young audience watches post-watershed Torchwood, because of Captain Jack. And it’s not as if Editorial Policy thinks sex is shocking in that context; they just think sex scenes cause embarrassment between kids and the adults watching, which encourages people to turn over. They want viewers to stay!
“And Ep.7 goes centre-stage with a proper, dark, beautiful, honest love story between two men, and it’s one of the best things I’ve ever had my name on. So there’s been no degaying here! Seriously: as IF I would! Come on!
“Be calm!”
Quoted on Gay Times Online.

Russell T Davies: Old News

"It's going to be about fortysomething gay men and how jealous they are of gay teenagers. I've been longing to write something for adults...
"What got me started was a friend, a former Mr Gay UK, who split up from his boyfriend. He asked me: 'Why are so many gay men so glad we split up?' That remark's stayed with me for six years. I think there's a self-punishing streak in that gladness and I want to explore it."

This was Russell T Davies - Fagburn loves her to BITS! etc - being interviewed by The Guardian in 2007.
RTD said the series was codenamed MGM (More Gay Men).
The BBC confirmed it was in development - TV/Film code for "under contract, currently being thought about".
This week the BBC told Hollywood Reporter it's back on - though apparently it's still only "in development".
But at least it now appears to have a name; Cucumber.
Though - knowing Russell - this may all be a big camp joke.
I wouldn't hold your cockbreath - RTD has been promising just such a "Queer As Older Folk" project ever since the end of Queer As Folk.
Over ten fucking years ago.