Cucumber won Russell T Davies a BAFTA: but he laments the fact that it didn’t get the hoped-for ratings…
Earlier this week, Frank Skinner and Russell T Davies shared a conversation on the former’s Absolute Radio show, that we touched on in part yesterday, here.
But one further conversation point that the pair discussed was Davies’ superb drama Cucumber, that screened in early 2015. The eight part drama, set in and around Manchester’s gay community, is a show that Skinner has long championed. And he mused to Davies just why people weren’t still talking about it.
Poor viewing figures, argued Davies, who said the he still “feels wounded” and that Cucumber is “a failure to me”. Not an artistic failure, mind. ““I love it. No one loves Cucumber more than me”, Davies said.
“I think, is there something so honest about it it drove people away? It’s unflinchingly honest, in a way that’s not comfortable”, he added. “Maybe on a Tuesday night, with a cup of tea, you want to watch a detective solve a crime? I wish I knew. If I knew what had gone wrong, I’d have corrected it somehow”.
Davies iterated that he’s very proud of it. He also confirmed that there’s a version of the show in development for US TV, by the name of Adult Behavior. He’s not heavily involved in that, though.
The full chat is well worth a listen. You can find it here:
Doctor Who: Now We Are Six Hundred: A Collection Of Time Lord Verse is available now, written by James Goss and illustrated by Russell T Davies.