The drama, written by Russell T. Davis, portrays the lives of a set of gay guys in their forties in Manchester. But does it accurately reflect modern gay life?

Cucumber violently assaulted the audience from the off. There was nothing to like about Henry or Lance. Henry came across as a miserable twat and Lance as desperate and a bit wet. Both of them came across as creepy. The viewer was then smacked in the face with a group of desperate, depressed, and/or predatory queens screeching at Grindr like a drunken hen party from Scunthorpe.

As a gay man watching I was embarrassed to think that people might see this and think that this is what we're all like.

Cucumber / Channel 4 / Red

It's still very much got a Queer as Folk vibe and it's very much a Russell T. Davis production. I feel that you could really tell that in it, but it is a bit more human, compared to Queer as Folk. As much as I didn't necessarily feel that I could relate to the characters in Cucumber, I felt like I did have a bit more empathy towards them, that they were a bit more human and a bit easier to understand compared to Queer as Folk, where it was all very cold and plastic really.

I was a bit worried that for a non-LGBT audience it was all going to be about sex and wasn't going to convey LGBT issues in the right light, so I was kind of glad that it did have that kind of depth beyond it, and for a first episode there was quite a bit to it. It wasn't the brilliant episode I expected it to be but it's not going to stop me from watching next week. I'm interested to see how the rest of it develops.

Because there is so little LGBT representation in the media, and the episode ended on a negative note, it reinforced what we always see when gay relationships are portrayed – they end in tragedy. I was kind of hoping that Cucumber would show something a bit more affirming, but it didn't. That was a bit disappointing for me.

But it's not something you can really blame Russell T. Davis for – the writer writes what he knows. The issue is we don't have enough space to explore every single aspect of what life is like for LGBT people.

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