User reviews

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 show is widely criticized for its stereotypical portrayal of gay characters as over-sexed, immature, sleazy and shallow. I could not agree more - the main character (as well as almost everyone on the show) is unlikeable for exactly those reasons. Nevertheless, I feel that the show (just like any other morality tale, which Cucumber basically is) uses its anti-hero to convey a message that is, in its core, a warning. What we see throughout the show, are characters who are unable to truly bond and in a desperate calling for closeness (or is it regaining lost youth, at least for some?) chase after random sex. This chase usually leads them to pathetic begging or self-commodification which, in this fictional universe, is seen as something inescapable and "normal"( like in the subplot with the video- mogul nephew). In effect, their hunger to be loved (via sexual intercourse) leads one of the characters to his death, the other to a existence of vacuous survival and endless desire. The plight of the elder generation is mirrored in the story lines of the young (in Cucumber as well as in its spin- off, Banana), who don't even consider forming any kind of durable bond, let alone expressing any kind of basic human concern (as personified in the truly repulsive character of walking "emptiness behind a pretty face" Freddie.) What I see as emblematic scene of the show is when the protagonist suggests creating a 60'-style commune, only to be met with incomprehension and laughter. The sense of togetherness that once prevailed within the gay culture has been dismantled (is it because of the embracement by the majority culture?),the social interactions take place within a strictly competitive market. Or is it a battleground?

All of this might be lost on some due to the strong comic nature of the show, but to me, the light over-tone of the whole thing only makes the tragedy more approachable to general audience.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I really don't know what to think of "Cucumber". It's certainly gripping but it also left me rather uncomfortable and wondering what I was doing to myself. To give you a bit of context: I'm from the Manchester area and it took me until my early-to-mid 20s to buck up the courage to come out. In the past few years since then, I've encountered a variety of gay people. Some are scene- obsessed, others don't have anything to do with the scene. Some are intelligent, some are stupid. Some seek alternative lifestyles, some don't. Some are quite conservative regarding sex and relationships, others far from. The fact is that sexual orientation does not necessarily define one's lifestyle or personal beliefs, nor should anyone try to beg to differ.

Though not as sleazy as the earlier "Queer as Folk", "Cucumber" portrays a stereotypical world of gay people (particularly gay men) who are narcissists, sex-addicts and general sleaze-balls. True, these people exist, and perhaps it's good to see gay people who are broke and on the fringes of society instead of fabulous, perfect- bodied and super-successful people who live in penthouses in LA or Manhattan. For someone who doesn't want to be shoved in a category and only interact with people of my own sexual orientation, it's quite frankly insulting. I understand that it's meant to be an over- the-top comedy-drama series and that it shouldn't be taken as realistic, but the fact of the matter is that some less informed people may watch it and come to see it as how gay people act and live. Feel free to make up your own mind on the programme, but just be warned.

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.

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!