Cucumber is a 2015 British comedy drama television series created by Russell T Davies and aired on Channel 4.

Following a disastrous date night with his boyfriend of nine years, Lance Sullivan (Cyril Nri), Henry's old life shatters.

He explained a pivotal scene in correspondence with journalist Benjamin Cook:[5] I can imagine a man who is so enraged by something tiny—the fact that his boyfriend won't learn to swim—that he goes into a rage so great that, in one night, his entire life falls apart.

[8] Cucumber was later picked up by Channel 4 to be produced by Davies' former colleague Nicola Shindler and the Red Production Company.

[12] Mark Lawson said that the show had a wider theme: "the broader genre of respectability meltdown, as Henry is accelerated from smug dullness to scenes featuring police intervention, furious colleagues and social humiliation".

[13] Both Lawson and Theo Merz (writing in the Daily Telegraph) compare the Cucumber trilogy to Davies' Queer as Folk—Lawson argues that while Cucumber and Banana are "notably sexually graphic", the times have changed: "Queer as Folk was made at a time when campaigners were fighting to reduce the age of gay sexual consent from 18 to 16, while Davies' latest shows are screening in an era when men and women can legally marry each other", and therefore the depictions of explicit sexual themes are less likely to offend.

[13] Merz agrees, stating that Cucumber and Banana "feel less dangerous, and so less exciting than the earlier Queer as Folk"; Merz also argues that Cucumber has wider latitude to represent more varied gay characters as it is not carrying the burden of being the only show on television representing gay life.

[16] The series was also positively reviewed in The Independent, where Ellen E. Jones stated: "In Davies' hands, the tragi-comedy of middle-aged desperation is so sad, but so, very, very funny".