Cucumber

Anyone who vilifies this show because they feel it paints a "stereotypical" or "negative" portrait of what gay men are like are either painfully naive or living in denial. This show is not only frighteningly accurate but smartly written, beautifully shot, superbly acted and stylishly edited.

As a 47 year old gay man, I found this (unlike many other gay-themed TV series) to, at long last, finally depict characters with which I am familiar and with whom I identify on many levels.

It's both raw and honest and yet tempers the darker aspects of gay life with humor and respect.

As much as we would like to be perceived as no different than our straight counterparts, the reality is we are different. And for good or ill, most of us gay folk do indeed behave in the manner that is depicted in this show. It was refreshing to not see our lifestyle sugar coated.

In our fight for equality, too often we try to pretend that things are not what they appear. But they are. They always have been, and they always will be. Gay men are, after all, men. And men have a single-mindedness when it comes to behavior and desire. If this show was about straight guys, we'd all say, "Well yeah. Men behave like that." But because it's specifically about gay men, so many would like to say "gay men don't really behave like that." But we do. That is the harsh reality we need to accept.

I've been out since I was 20 years old. In the 27 years of being an out (and proud) gay man, I have seen and encountered all of these characters in my life and still, to this day, see and encounter them. Stop cry-babying that this show perpetuates negative stereotypes. If you don't like what you see in this show, then don't watch the show. But you will see no different in the real world. This is gay life. We love, we lose, we win, we make mistakes and we have sex... a lot of it if we're lucky. And when we're not having sex, we're looking for it. Not because we're gay. But because we're guys. Cucumber depicts what men do and how men behave when those men happen to be gay -- the joy, the misery, the heartache, the loss, the triumphs, the failures, the sex and the never-ending quest for it.

That is the reality of the world we live in. Sorry if you find that harsh. That's what happens when a mirror is held up and you don't like what you see. I personally had no problem with what I saw when I watched this show. I make no apologies for who I am and what I do. I'm far from a minority of one in that respect.

The problem is not with what this show portrays. The problem is that the portrayal is accurate. And that problem is, quite frankly, our problem and no one else's.

Learn to live with it.

I loved this series. The only thing that was not convincing is that in the series Henry is 46 years old. Come on!!! No 46 year old man that takes good care of himself looks that old. Henry looks more like 56 than 46.

My exposure to the work of Russell T Davies has been quite limited, as I never watched a lot of his stuff from years past. I watched Cucumber out of interest, as it did seem like a large 'event', although I did not watch the supporting shows of Banana or Tofu (I think the former followed minor characters and the latter was more of a discussion show around the issues). Set within the Manchester gay community, we follow older Henry as a series of moments see him and his long-term partner breaking up, and him living with a small group of much, much younger (and adventurous) gay men.

From the start the show has a lot of energy, with plenty of colorful characters, excessive language, dialogue, and of course full-frontal male nudity. To some this will be enough to put them off whereas if the show had straight characters and female nudity, they would not be. I was unsure how I felt about this element of the show for some time – was it the fact that I saw this as 'alternative' the issue that meant the sexual material seemed like an issue? For me personally it was not, but for sure the show's obsession with sex was a barrier in and of itself. Perhaps it is my distance from this community that meant it felt over-the-top and a little tiresome in its constant sexual energy, however it remains that it did feel this way.

It is a shame because there are some real people in here, and the show is really driven by Franklin's performance as Henry. Too often he is thrown around in the sea of sex, with its fast edits, its boundless energy, and polished presentation. However at times the script gives him space to be a person within this world, and in those moments his performances works really well. It is a shame that the same was not said for the others and too many just felt like easy caricatures without any fleshing out. Even those characters which have more to work with, they still don't really manage to fight their way through the energy and bustle to make a mark.

It is a shame, because I did also quite enjoy elements of the energy, sex, and sense of lifestyle. However it does feel like these elements were always first and foremost on the agenda, and it always seems like the characters and moments of genuine feeling just came about for the purpose of having a frame for all of the main material, not the other way round.

This is no "Queer as Folk", which had an actual story based around a set of main characters, who continuously evolved with the seasons. Of course, that ended abruptly in the UK and the US version became a bigger hit. Cucumber tried to do that but seemingly got hijacked along the way. There are many subplots, some of which come to fruition, others just fizzle out or are never mentioned again. The editing leaves much to be desired with scenes just stuck together in some random order. The dialog and sexual scenes are quite raw, and the depicted behavior of the Manchester scene does explain why this was/is a hard hit area for STIs etc. After a while, one does get bored with the story as it does not seem to follow a smooth trajectory. The final episode is a rush to bring the story arc to the end. It was OK, but not great....and could have been so much better!

The main character, Henry, is as unapologetic as it gets. He couldn't care less about what others think of him, and doesn't crave approval at all. At least, that's what he projects and how he'd describe himself. The whole series is like that. Daring and totally unafraid to be offensive (and this will be very offensive to some) Cucumber is an extraordinarily raw and honest look at gay sexuality in an over-sexualized world. A world where the bad one and the victim aren't necessarily who you think, at first. A very worthwhile journey.