Former Producer Russell T. Davies has spoken on his time at BBC Wales in Cardiff, leaving and moving on from Doctor Who and his new trio of shows for Channel 4, Cucumber, Banana and Tofu.
Speaking to Robin Parker for Broadcast, RTD seems happy to have his feet firmly back in the real world:
“When I finished Queer As Folk, I always knew I’d write about this world again. This is my heartland – it’s on my mind all day long. If Doctor Who hadn’t become such a huge monster, we’d have been having this conversation in 2006… I’d spent 10 years in outer space. I felt like it was time to come down to Earth and write about the human heart. I missed the contemporary stuff.”
Russell has taken his experience in running multiple projects during his stint in Cardiff on board however, applying them to his latest C4 endeavours:
“In building the studios at Cardiff, the BBC needed output. As we embarked on Doctor Who a decade ago, the worry was that it was just one show. Under Julie’s aegis, we set out to create a whole department… Over seven or eight years there, I taught myself to take an idea and extrapolate it. When you think of one project, think of two more – make hay while the sun shines.”
And what of RTD’s latest projects?
Cucumber, which will focus a group of middle-aged gay friends and former activists in the Manchester gay scene, will be accompanied with Banana, an E4 series featuring younger characters on the periphery of the Cucumber narrative, and Tofu, an online guide to gay sex; the three names reference a urological scale categorising the male erection by hardness from tofu to cucumber and, in the show’s universe, will symbolise the levels of sexual attraction between characters.
Channel 4 head of Drama Piers Wenger (another familiar name) has called them a “political piece of writing” that creates a “radical approach to sexuality” and it is terminology that Russell embraces:
“To live as a gay man in the 21st century, your life is political, just by opening your mouth and saying you’re gay. The existence of these stories is political. There’s no agenda, but I’m speaking from the heart – this stuff is important and it generates a political air… The worst description you could give this is to call it a midlife-crisis drama. It’s better than that.”
RTD believes that British TV Drama is generally in rude health and has been for a long time:
“Yes, we’re in a healthy position now – but when weren’t we? It’s 10 years now since we revived Doctor Who, and its sustained success is extraordinary, but remember: ITV was bold enough to commission me to write The Second Coming. Even in 1999, there really was no trouble getting Queer As Folk onto C4. My first day at Granada was the morning after the first Prime Suspect aired and it was exhilarating; the whole place was buzzing, from receptionists to security staff. That was 25 years ago.”
Cucumber, Banana and Tofu will be shown on Channel 4, E4 and 4oD later this month.
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