QUEER AS FOLK creator Russell T Davies saw his new show Cucumber Banana Tofu debut on our screens last night.
It’s already been described as “the TV event of the week”. And it featured a male chastity belt.
Wondering what the name is from? Well, it’s derived from what creator Davies has said is a scientific scale for measuring the male erection. He told an interviewer that a particular study:
divided the hard-on into four categories, from soft to hard. One, tofu. Two, peeled banana. Three, banana. And four, cucumber. Right there and then, I knew I had my drama.
First, a little explainer. The show goes out on three different channels on the same night. It’s divided into three parts – unsurprisingly called Cucumber, Banana and Tofu.
Cucumber is broadcast on Channel 4 – an eight-part drama series following a couple whose life is shattered by “the most disastrous date in history”. Banana, on E4 immediately afterwards, is eight standalone stories “covering different aspects of LGBT life”. And Tofu, available on 4OD, is a series of documentaries exploring sexuality in the 21st century.
In the first episode of Cucumber, actor Fisayo Akinade manned up – in the most painfully literal sense – to don a male chastity device. And show it on screen.
Yes, that is a metal cage that you put around your man-parts to stop anything happening down there. It looks something like this:
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Needless to say, it got quite the reaction on Twitter.
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In case you’re wondering what wearing one is like, we refer you to intrepid HuffPo writer Brian Moylan who donned the thing for three days. So how exactly does it work?
While the mechanism seemed simple at first glance, getting it on was a bit complicated.
But basically, you put it over your manhood and lock it around the base. (We’ll leave the details to your imagination.)
And what is wearing it like? Well, there are various complications, including the fact that after a day or two “a little bit of steam had collected on the inside”, and the difficulties of going to the toilet, “which is done through a hole at the end of the enclosure.”
But the most difficult bit? We quote:
Waking up with your d** locked in a plastic cage is the hardest part. It always takes a minute to remember why there is a crazy contraption squeezing the hell out of it.
Quite.
And is the show any good? Well, the Guardian has called it “gloriously, triumphantly, explicitly gay and the television event of the week”. The Times was more measured, with a three-star review. And Pink News has said that “you’d be hard pushed to find fault” with the shows.
You can watch all three shows on 4OD here.
