Cucumber

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.

It's refreshing to find anything these days that's centered around a mature gay man. It is totally relatable, in that the characters include a realistic range of ages, personalities, and cultural and life experiences. It's funny, it's relevant, it's true to life, and the plot takes many twists and turns, as well as some unexpected events. So happy to find a series, a movie, - anything - that has "grown up" and is past the self discovery, or coming out, phase of the gay male experience! The character of Henry is beautifully written, acted, and portrayed, as are all the main cast of characters. I loved it!

I 'box-set-blitzed' this drama when it first came out and absolutely loved it, then did the same with it's companion piece, Banana. This time around, seven years later, I watched it as intended: one episode of Cucumber, one episode of Banana and found that I enjoyed it even more. Apart from the odd old IPhone model it hasn't dated and still hits hard even if you know what's coming. Davies at this point understood humans completely, (a gift that seems to have faded into 'woke cliché' territory in more recent dramas like Years and Years and It's a Sin). The acting is superb, especially Cyril Nri who gives an outstanding performance. (The one exception is Julie Hesomndhalgh who basically plays her own self righteous, patronising self with her own accent; which is completely different from her on-screen brother's). Vincent Franklin is also excellent, swapping emotional drama for comedy and back again at exactly the right moment. If you haven't seen Cucumber then I'd definitely recommend it.

A friend advised me to watch this series because it was supposed to be about my life. As a gay man in my early fifties I was kind of unsure if I wanted to see this, a story about a man my age dealing with my issues. Well, I just finished the last episode and I must admit that I highly enjoyed "Cucumber".

Best part of Cucumber is the great script, mostly funny, sometimes dramatic. In my opinion all important themes of gay life for a middle aged man are presented. Also the uneasy thing of the division of roles in male gay relationships and sex, who's the top and who's the bottom? Who gives and who receives? Who penetrates and who is being penetrated? Decades ago this wasn't an issue at all. I had long term relationships and I never discussed that with my boyfriends. We were happy being together. Nowadays gays want to know if you're a top or bottom. The same clarity as between a man and a woman? If you can't or wont define yourself you're going to miss sexual opportunities. In porn movies roles are defined, and so it should be in our lives. Whether or not straight rules are the same for gay sex, it's a fact that this old fashioned view on sex is now mainstream in the gay community. The tragedy about all this is that it has been scientifically proved that most gay man are in fact bottoms. So everybody is looking for a top and two bottoms don't even think about falling in love or being sexual. Oh well, everybody has to do what they must do, but I don't believe in this division.

Cucumber has many more great themes, but this was the most striking for me.

Cucumber is compared with that other gay series called "Looking". Looking was nicely shot and superbly styled but Cucumber dives much deeper and seriously in taboos like gay male sexual intercourse, loneliness, age gaps, career and work, narcissism, bi-curious youth, race and social media.

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!