Cucumber and Banana

[Ferretfancy]

I wonder, have any boarders watched any of these Channel 4 drama series about gay lives in Manchester? I have to say straight away that as a gay man I find it a curiously depressing experience to watch, and I'm not sure if I will stay the course.
It's well written by Russell Davies, and for the most part well performed, but the characters and their social life seem, to be completely artificial.
The problem is that they are only seen in the context of an endless search for sex. They have no life outside the chase, which is absurd. OK, I'm not in the younger generation any more, but I feel that this is deeply demeaning to gay people.

The TV critic Sam Wallaston said " Are there no nice gay people in Manchester ? " I can see his point.

I'd welcome comments from anyone who has watched so far.

[eighthobstruction]

Very disappointed in for the reasons that you give Ff....parted ways with it before the end od pt3....soap opera like - people being horrible to one another....

[jayne lee wilson]

Soon gave up on both of them, neither seemed to have got beyond Queer as Folk thematically (well OK, no need for much coming-out stuff anymore) but neither are as engaging or inventive as that classic...

(Still it could be worse... could be that car-crash TV series called...Fortitude. What were they all thinking of. No wonder Christopher Eccleston got himself killed off in episode one. I think Michael Gambon stayed on to send the whole thing, including himself, right up. Sets out to to be the Twin Peaks of the Arctic, ends up in the so-bad-its-good collection... off topic, sorry...)

[jean]

I happened to see the bit of Banana with the two lesbian girls and the lesbian mother...as a lesbian found it very depressing and haven't bothered to watch any more.

I did enjoy Queer as Folk, though.

[Flosshilde]

If I had a television I might have felt duty-bound to watch, & have wondered if I should catch up with it on-line, but it sounds like I needn't bother.

(But surely it can't be as awful & embarrasing as that dreadful sit-com with McKellen & Jacobi?)

[Beef Oven!]

I wonder, have any boarders watched any of these Channel 4 drama series about gay lives in Manchester? I have to say straight away that as a gay man I find it a curiously depressing experience to watch, and I'm not sure if I will stay the course.
It's well written by Russell Davies, and for the most part well performed, but the characters and their social life seem, to be completely artificial.
The problem is that they are only seen in the context of an endless search for sex. They have no life outside the chase, which is absurd. OK, I'm not in the younger generation any more, but I feel that this is deeply demeaning to gay people.

The TV critic Sam Wallaston said " Are there no nice gay people in Manchester ? " I can see his point.

I'd welcome comments from anyone who has watched so far.

I haven't watched any of the episodes, but from the trailers I quickly realised that it was going to be the usual promiscuous stereotype with a few things thrown in to shock the older/straight viewer, with no discernible storyline.

Perhaps I have jumped to conclusions, and should have watched at least a bit of it.

[Mary Chambers]

I

I haven't watched any of the episodes, but from the trailers I quickly realised that it was going to be the usual promiscuous stereotype with a few things thrown in to shock the older/straight viewer, with no discernible storyline.

Perhaps I have jumped to conclusions, and should have watched at least a bit of it.

Out of curiosity I have watched some of Cucumber (not the other one), and I suppose I am 'the older, straight viewer'. It did shock me, but not because of the sex. I was shocked by the miserable lives the characters seem to live. I hope it's not typical. It certainly doesn't resemble the lives of the gay men I know (not a great number) who are mostly in stable relationships.

[Beef Oven!]

I

Out of curiosity I have watched some of Cucumber (not the other one), and I suppose I am 'the older, straight viewer'. It did shock me, but not because of the sex. I was shocked by the miserable lives the characters seem to live. I hope it's not typical. It certainly doesn't resemble the lives of the gay men I know (not a great number) who are mostly in stable relationships.

Kinda bears out what I was thinking.

[Honoured Guest]

It's well written by Russell T Davies, and for the most part well performed, but the characters and their social life seem, to be completely artificial.

Yes, the script is a witty comedy of manners and not naturalistic, but the setting and characters are quite close to being realistic, which can make the artifice seem wrong.

I haven't watched any of the episodes, but from the trailers I quickly realised that it was going to be ... with no discernible storyline.

In fact there are several very clear, interlinking storylines running the course of the eight episodes and climaxing in such a manner that Russell T Davies has said that no second series is possible.

I was shocked by the miserable lives the characters seem to live. I hope it's not typical.

Well, it's a drama and so it starts with the break-up of a nine-year stable relationship. The hope seems to lie with the youngest characters, like the schoolboy web-broadcasting nephew.