Feeling Blue is an upcoming six-part sitcom and profound social commentary on depression and masculinity in the twenty-first century. The cast is solely made up of the four members of the boyband Blue—Lee Ryan, Simon Webbe, Antony Costa and Duncan James.

The protagonist, Neil (Lee Ryan), is an ambidextrous Cornish fishmonger who begins to suffer from depression following the breakup of his marriage. In the first episode Neil meets his therapist, Colin (Simon Webbe), who hides a secret passion for pottery and the novels of Enid Blyton behind his cold, emotionless exterior. Neil’s best friend, Alan (Antony Costa), a professional jockey and battle reenactment enthusiast, struggles to accept his best friend’s illness. All the other characters—including Levi Goldstein, an unexpectedly antisemitic piano tuner; Stanley Sidcup, a one-armed Geordie juggler; and Tony Flower, a flirtatious florist with a taste for ‘the exotic’—are to be played by the versatile Duncan James.

Will Neil learn to cope with his depression? Will Colin become more open about his inner creativity? Will Alan apologise to Neil for his behaviour? Will Levi realise that he’s actually Jewish? Will Stanley find a more suitable occupation for someone with only one arm? Will Tony read Edward Said’s seminal work Orientalism and come to appreciate that paternalistic preconceptions of ‘the exotic’ are inextricably linked to repressive Western cultural hegemony and are thus both intellectually and morally dubious?

Image by maybeMaybeMaybe