Ex-Coronation Street star Julie Hesmondhalgh to appear in new Channel 4 gay drama

Former Coronation Street star Julie Hesmondhalgh is to appear in a new drama about the lives of a gay couple by Russell T Davies.

Hesmondhalgh will join actors Freddie Fox and Vincent Franklin – who starred in The Thick Of It – in Cucumber, which is currently filming in Manchester.

The series will be aired in 2015.

Cucumber follows 46-year-old Henry (Franklin) and his long-suffering boyfriend Lance, whose lives are turned upside down after a disastrous date night.

Hesmondhalgh will play Henry’s sister.

The series was announced last year but casting has only just been revealed.

Russell T Davies, whose other credits include Queer as Folk and Doctor Who, is also working on a companion drama for E4, titled Bananas, which will follow the same characters.

Hesmondhalgh is best known for playing Hayley Cropper, Coronation Street’s first transgender character.

She left the soap in January, after 16 years, in a story about assisted suicide where Hayley took her own life rather than continuing to suffer from pancreatic cancer.

• Nov 29 2023

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