Cucumber

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.

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!

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!

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.

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.