By Steve Clarke

Russell T Davies, writer of such boundary-breaking TV drama as Queer As Folk and now another sexually explicit gay series for Channel 4, Cucumber, wants one thing to be clear. He does not set out to shock.

"Making drama is such a rigorous process. You go through so many stages with so many people. If you set out to shock you wouldn't get past the first stage," he says speaking at a Broadcasting Press Guild lunch.

Also present are Nicola Shindler, who runs production company Red (a long-time collaborator with Davies), and Channel 4 head of drama Piers Wenger.

It was Wenger who commissioned Cucumber and its two sister shows, Banana and Tofu; the former is an E4 series of single dramas written by first-time writers, the latter is a factual series exploring contemporary sexual mores available on 4oD.

Davies is an engaging six foot six Welshman with a twinkle in his eye.

He is a TV junkie and one of the medium's most successful and accomplished practitioners.

Davies has no pretensions about his craft and is clearly a perfectionist. At Red his first drafts are famous for being highly polished.

"I try to deliver a script that is absolutely ready, then you start work on them. Then you can pull it apart..."

He adds: "The writing is the last thing you do, that's the point. It's all about the thinking."

The titles, Cucumber, Banana and Tofu, are drawn from a medical study categorising the potency of an erection, something which immediately appealed to Davies' sense of mischief. 

Davies, of course, masterminded Doctor Who's regeneration for the BBC and created spin-off series Torchwood.

Cucumber writer Russell T Davies says he is not out to shock

He is passionate about the BBC and worried what another Conservative-led coalition might do to the broadcaster's funding.

"Practically the first visitor David Cameron (on becoming Prime Minister) had was Rupert Murdoch," Davies recalls.

"And practically the first thing they did was to freeze the licence fee without any consultation whatever. They attacked it immediately.

"If they win the next election they will do the same again. The BBC is under constant attack. 

"We're in a situation where I think the licence fee will never go up. Can you imagine an increase being allowed now?

"I genuinely believe in the BBC...It is a magnificent power house. I fear for it...There are powerful voices raised against it."

CBBC show Wizards Vs Aliens is another of Davies's recent shows but its future is on hold due to lack of money.

In total contrast to Wizards Vs Aliens and Doctor Who, Cucumber is aimed squarely at the adult audience. Regardless of how viewers react, it is certain to be one of the year's most talked about TV dramas.

Like Queer As Folk, the series is set in the Manchester gay community although this time round the central character - Henry Best - is on the wrong side of 40.

Davies hopes that straight viewers tune in to Cucumber and become hooked on Henry, a sexual predator who's also a bit of a monster. 

He is apparently a character of such amoral complexity he's already been compared to John Updike's very heterosexual Rabbit.

 

"I hope Cucumber doesn't look like it's just for the gays," Davies stresses. "I didn't not watch Cold Feet just because they were all straight...I hope gayness isn't a closed door."

Vincent Frank, left, and Cyril Nyi in Cucumber

He adds: "The sex and the swearing and the nudity can take over...I hope you can welcome this show and like it.

Cucumber was originally developed for BBC Worldwide in the US, where Davies was then living. A pilot episode was set in Seattle but a series failed to materialise.

Subsequently Channel 4 commissioned the show. "It took two days to change that script back to a British story," Davies claims.

Queer As Folk, also broadcast by Channel 4, was first shown back in 1999 in the UK and provoked complaints from Christian lobbyists to Ofcom.

It remains to be seen if today's audiences are more tolerant of Davies' full-on depiction of gay relationships.

Have attitudes moved on to the extent that writing a gay drama is no longer controversial?

"It's hard to say," muses Davies. "It was always going to be shown at 9pm...It's a tricky first episode, it's got nudity, sex scenes and swearing...

"I don't know if there will be a fuss about it...partly I hope not. As I said, I hope people will like the characters...

"I hope it's an honest start. It's saying 'This is about men and erections.' ...It's saying 'Jump ship now if you want to 'cos this isn't going to change.'"

Is Cucumber political? "I think its existence is political. It can't not be. When you see what's happening in Russia and Senegal, I think you do need to stand up and be counted.

"Our age is perhaps not quite so volatile as Queer As Folk when the age of consent was being discussed literally two weeks after we transmitted.

"Then again it is a volatile age. Every right that we've earned still feels fragile to me. I don't know if that's paranoid."

Told in eight one-hour parts, Cucumber's narrative is totally self-contained in the way most novels are. This makes a second season impossible.

"It literally ends (with the final episode)," Davies explains. It takes that story and closes it...

Cucumber will be interlinked with two other dramas, Banana and Tofu

"Most dramas are about an extraordinary time in someone's life. You don't keep on having extraordinary times...If you're telling a story about ordinary people I think it's quite nice to bring it to an end."

Not that Davies is turning his turning his back on a theme so close to his heart.

Work has already started on another gay drama, The Boys, this time set in the 1980s when AIDs reared its ugly head.

The Boys was inspired by "partly turning 50, partly looking back on my life and partly my boyfriend staring mortality in the face." (Davies' partner suffers from brain cancer).

He adds: "I'm amazed I haven't done this before. I'm amazed no one has.

"I've started to watch dramas, great dramas like Pride ...but it kind of looks like we were all waving placards in the streets and besieging Downing Street about AIDs...That's not how it was at all.

"We stayed very quiet and couldn't quite believe it was happening.

"I didn't go on any march...That's why I need to write this.

"I haven't come to terms with it. I had friends who died and didn't go to their funerals. I didn't even write to their mums...

"I look back now and think I am ashamed. I genuinely wonder why I did that."

Cucumber begins its Channel 4 run on January 22