Girls blow their own strumpets
THEY’RE at it everywhere on Harlots – bedrooms, sidestreets, back alleys. It’s like Apple Tree Yard with a price-tag.
One in five women was up for a knee-trembler in the London of 1763. All you had to do was pay for it. How things change.
Nowadays on Geordie Shore they give it away…
Samantha Morton’s charms are overflowing as bosomy brothel madam Margaret Wells. Her alcoholic mum flogged her virginity when she was 12 for “the price of a pair of shoes”. I’m guessing brothel creepers.
Marg put her own daughters on the game too. Charlotte has become one of the hottest courtesans in town. In fact, in any Whores of the Year show she’d sashay into the final.
While young Lucy held on to her cherry for longer than any soap teenager before Margaret auctioned it off.
Her big rival is la-di-dah Lydia (Lesley Manville), who thinks her bawdy house/knocking shop is a cut above. When she tries for a transfer there, Emily is described as looking for a position. “I’m never short of a position,” she replies coquettishly.
To up the ante, Lydia sets the law on Margaret. These strumpets won’t come quietly, though. Well, not unless you Email me at: garry.bushell@ dailystar.co.uk or write c/o Daily Star Sunday, 10 Lower Thames Street, London EC3R 6EN pay ’ em extra. Made almost entirely by women, this show is inspired by Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies, a genuine 18th century directory which rated their bedroom skills and listed their prices.
One review described fat Fanny as “a fine bouncing comely wench, not amiss in summer barring perspiration”.
It was partly a Yellow Pages of Lust, partly Bushell on the Boxes.
Mercifully, Harlots isn’t the grim hoes-with-woes feminist tract it would’ve been had the Beeb made it.
The happy hookers seem to enjoy their work. “I’ve ridden hard to be with you,” says one lusty toff. “Then I must ride harder,” grins Charlotte. Like Peaky Blinders and Versailles, Harlots uses jarring modern music on the soundtrack.
It also seems absurdly clean. Where are the piss-pots being emptied out the window? London didn’t have sewers for another 100 years.
The place must’ve Cameron’s Uber links.
EMILY describes herself pleasantly as “the Duchess of Quim”. Let’s hope she finds her Duke of Pork someday.
DOWNTON’s Lady Sybil star Jessica Brown Findlay plays Charlotte. Shocking. If it had been Lady Mary no-one would’ve batted an eye. stunk like LINE of Duty and Thandie Newton (right)… Broadchurch…Zoe Kravitz, Big Little Lies (SkyAt)…The Last Kingdom WHAT makes an Amazing Hotel? The complete absence of Giles Coren helps… spectators including Frank Bruno watched McCrory take down America’s Corey “Whiz Kid” Williams.
Is it wrong? Outside of Evans joking “I’ll be punchdrunk by the time I’m 31”, Channel 4 didn’t scrutinise the medical risks. Consider this, though. In a century of bare-knuckle bouts in the USA, there were no ring fatalities. Yet more than 500 have died in the ring since gloves were brought in.
Fat Boy works in a scrapyard in a former mining village. Why shouldn’t he be allowed his shot at glory?
UNLICENSED boxing made legends of hard men like Lenny McLean, Roy “Pretty Boy” Shaw, Cliff Field and Johnny “Big Bad” Waldron.
When Lenny appeared on my old ITV show, rival Roy demanded right of reply. I could’ve said no but I quite like my teeth. VAIN, condescending a*se Giles Coren (left) – a haemorrhoid in human form…Gordon Ramsay’s charmless Nightly Show – as laughable as Ronaldo’s statue CAN Bradley Walsh rescue the format? If multi-talented Brad packs it with gags and brings in the brilliant showbiz pros that TV pseuds neglect then the audience will come. THIS is nice. I hear that Cheryl’s new baby has inherited her talent. His screams are auto-tuned. WHO KO’d Ken on Corrie? Slippery Adam seems favourite, but don’t rule out Eccles. Ken has only walked that poor mutt once this year.