Channel 4 boss: ‘Cucumber’ will lightly outrage Daily Mail’
By Josh Haggis
Russell T Davies’s new gay-themed series Cucumber will “lightly outrage” the Daily Mail, according to Channel 4’s Chief Creative Officer Jay Hunt.
Cucumber, an eight-part drama, will be broadcast on Channel 4next year alongside its E4 sister show Banana, which will take a closer look at the lives of the series’ younger characters. Filming is now underway in Manchester, where the shows are set.
“We wouldn’t be Channel 4 if we weren’t planning to lightly outrage the Daily Mail,” Hunt admitted while discussing Cucumber at a recent press event – before adding that the project is “so risqué that it wouldn’t get past an American network”.
Meanwhile, Channel 4’s Head of Drama, Piers Wenger, told The Independent on Sunday that some viewers may find content featured in the series “challenging”.
“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,” said Wenger. “There’s no doubt people will find it challenging but it’s asking intelligent questions in an original way.”
Actors appearing in Cucumber and Banana include Twenty Twelve’s Vincent Franklin, former Coronation Street actress Julie Hesmondhalgh, In the Flesh star Luke Newberry, comedian Rufas Hound and attitude.co.uk contributor Andrew Hayden-Smith.
An interconnected factual web series, Tofu, is also in development, and is billed as an “anarchic online guide to sex” inspired by the events each week in Cucumber and Banana.
Explaining the titles of the shows last year, Davies said: “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.”
Meanwhile, earlier this week Andrew Hayden-Smith shared a picture of one of his more revealing Cucumber costumes – take a look here.
Cucumber, Banana and Tofu are set to air in early 2015.