In the Flesh: Kieren Walker (Luke Newberry)
BBc / In the Flesh
In the series — which is being produced as a sister show to Channel 4’s
Cucumber — Newberry will be playing a young gay man called Josh. Joining him will be newcomer Dino Fletsher as his boyfriend, Aiden.
Both pieces of casting information were hidden in a wider report on the production of Davies’s new shows.
According to Gay Star News, Newberry and Fletsher will be playing central characters in
Banana, but will actually make their debuts in
Cucumber.
Cucumber,
Banana and the online-streamed factual-based
Tofu, which are interconnected and are currently being filmed alongside each other in Manchester, marks Davies’s return to working for Channel 4 after a lengthy absence.
As previously
reported by Gay Star News, the choice of names of each individual series is, according to Davies, based on the different categories attributed to the male erection.
“I once read about a scientific institute which had studied the male erections,” Davies claimed. “It 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.’
This isn’t the first time Davies has written modern dramas about the lives of gay men, the Swansea-born, Manchester-based writer and producer having, in the 1990s, created the ground-breaking gay drama series
Queer as Folk for Channel 4.
Russell T Davies
Wikipedia
Since then, he has been responsible for a number of high-profile drama, including ITV’s primetime drama
Bob & Rose,
The Second Coming, also for ITV and starring Christopher Eccleston in a post-
Cracker role,
Casanova, which starred ???? and David Tennant in the older and younger versions of the titular role, and
Torchwood, the science-fiction thriller series featuring
Scotland’s John Barrowman (
Arrow) as Captain Jack Harkness and Wales’s
Eve Mylles (
Broadchurch) as Gwen Taylor.
Davies is also
the person responsible for the successful
high-profile return to television of
Doctor Who — the BBC’s flagship science-fiction drama series now popular in countries all over the world — of which he was showrunner from 2003 to 2009.
After handing over the
Doctor Who reigns to Steven Moffat in 2009/10, Davies moved to LA in America to work on projects for the fledgling drama operation at BBC America — which resulted in the fourth, and so far final, season of
Torchwood being largely filmed in the United States in association with Starz.
Davies has long indicated that he wanted to return to gay-themed drama, at was understood to be working on and off on an idea revolving around older gay men, provisionally titled
MGM.
At the time of his move to LA,
as reported in 2012 by
Deadline, he was working on a new gay drama series, now called
Cucumber, for Showtime. However, that and any proposed continuing Starz association with
Torchwood was put on hold when, in 2011,
Davies returned to the UK to help his partner, Andrew, through treatment he was receiving for a brain cancer.
Consequently, Davies’s workload was severely reduced, although he did create a new science-fiction/magic drama series,
Wizard vs Aliens, for the children’s channel CBBC.
Wizard vs Aliens — soon to commence its third season on TV — was commissioned to replace another Davies creation, the immensely popular sci-fi drama series,
The Sarah Jane Adventures, which had ceased production following
the untimely death of its star, Elisabeth Sladen.
From Roarton to Manchester
Luke Newberry, of course, is best known for playing the PDS sufferer Kieren Walker in the hit zombie-themed drama series
In the Flesh, the BBC Three–BBC America co-production that recently completed a second successful season on both sides of the Atlantic.
Created and written by
Dominic Mitchell,
In the Flesh chronicles life in Roarton, a small English village where people with ‘partially dead syndrome’ (PDS) — that is, dead people who, having risen from their graves as zombies are now being treated so that they can resume some semblance of normal living — have been reintegrated into society. This situation leads to much friction between ‘ordinary’ people and the PDS sufferers.
Having premiered as a three-part season in early 2013, a six-part
Season 2 was commissioned by the BBC almost immediately. However, since completing its run in June, fans of the series have been waiting patiently to hear whether or not a third season will follow.
Despite the critical acclaim the show has received in Britain, North America and elsewhere, and its recent triumph at the BAFTAs,
Damien Molony, Luke Newberry
Twitter / Kara Manley
the future of
the award-winning In the Flesh remains uncertain because its television home in the UK, BBC Three, is
to be axed. In the US,
In the Flesh is broadcast as part of the popular
Supernatural Saturday slot on BBC America, which is also home to
Doctor Who — soon to commence its first Peter Capaldi season — and
Orphan Black, the science-fiction clone-themed thriller series recently renewed for a third season.
Meantime, while everyone
awaits news of an
In the Flesh renewal, fans of the Newberry can look forward to seeing him, not only in
Banana, but also when he joins series’ regular Daniel Mahony in the
second season of Suspects, the semi-improvised Channel 5 police procedural, which returns to TV sometime in the new year.
Banana, meanwhile, is set to premiere on E4 in the UK in 2015, date to be announced.
Cucumber will do likewise, but on Channel 4, while
Tofu, which is being produced by Benjamin Cook, will be streamed online.