Body and soul on show

Stan’s Little Birds takes an intellectual look at love, longing and sexuality, writes Holly Byrnes

IT’S the saucy little secret emerging from a world currently locked behind closed doors – the rise of erotic storytelling on the small screen.

But Little Birds – the latest six-part series, streaming on Stan – takes a more intellectual look at longing, love and sexuality than the soft porn, and sometimes brutal, nudity of blockbuster dramas such as Girls or Game of Thrones.

Adapted from a collection of short stories by famed French-Cuban-American novelist Anais Nin, the hotly anticipated UK production is poised to curl up toes and raise a few temperatures.

Teased by London’s The Times, no less, as “a woozy six-part melodrama”, it is both a visual feast and an intriguing exploration of colonial decadence, mixed with sexual curiosity.

Set in Tangier in 1955 (but filmed in the Spanish region of Andalucia last year), it has all the international glamour of a colour-rich Casablanca, with the taboo-breaking and sexual fluidity of Killing Eve.

Juno Temple takes the lead as troubled American debutante Lucy Savage, who finds life as a society wife in the French protectorate a claustrophobic bore.

Her desire to break free from a sham marriage to her closeted English husband (Fleabag’s Hugo Skinner) sees this daughter of a gun runner find an unexpected love interest in Cherifa Lamour, a local prostitute and dominatrix (played by Lebanese actress Yumna Marwan).

“In the intial connection,” Temple explains, “[Lucy] doesn’t know if she wants to kiss her, wants to be with her, or if she wants to be dominated by her.”

A scan over Temple’s TV and film credits confirms she is comfortable with adult material, but she resents being constantly asked about her appearances on screen sans clothes.

And as she argues, for her role in 2019 film Lost Transmissions, for example, it’s stripping herself bare emotionally she finds more of a challenge.

“The first time I saw [Lost Transmissions], I actually felt more vulnerable than I did in movies where I’ve taken my clothes off. You’re either exposing your brains or you’re exposing your boobs – which is more frightening?”

Ed Rutherford, the director of photography, defends the Little Birds production for taking a more considered approach to screen sensuality.

“It was not about nudity, it was not about taboo, it was about breaking taboo and inviting the mainstream into enjoying expressive images of sensuality that maybe they haven’t been exposed to before,” he says.

Temple is more blunt: “Nudity has never been a huge drama in my life. When I hear people say, ‘Oh she’s got her tits out’, I’m like, ‘So? How was the actual performance?’”

LITTLE BIRDS

STREAMING, STAN