BBC porn storm as Versailles returns... with five in a bed
THINGS are hotting up in the Court of the Sun King.
Right from the start, the BBC drama Versailles caused controversy with its X-rated depiction of shameless bed-hopping by Louis XIV and his courtiers.
But now, as the show returns, it’s being slammed as ‘pornography’ for scenes more explicit than ever before – including a five-ina-bed sex scene. The shocking moment shows an all-male orgy in which the king’s brother Philippe, Duke of Orleans, is joined by his lover the Chevalier de Lorraine and three courtiers, all nude.
Elsewhere the king, played by British actor George Blagden, is seen dallying naked with his mistress, Madame de Montespan (fellow British star Anna Brewster).
Even the trailer for the show doesn’t pull any punches, featuring male and female nudity, and the Sun King inviting viewers to a court dominated by ‘corruption’, ‘darkness’, ‘temptation’ and ‘murder’.
Critics have accused the BBC of pandering to the lowest common denominator and being irresponsible in showing the French series at prime time, starting on BBC2 at 9.30pm on Friday, April 21.
Norman Wells, of the Family Education Trust, said: ‘The BBC may choose to refer to Versailles as a “period drama”, but a programme featuring such sexually explicit scenes is quite simply pornography dressed up under another name.’
Chris McGovern, of the Campaign for Real Education, said: ‘It’s TV junk food that is playing to the lowest common denominator and it has little to say in terms of history.’
But historian Lucy Worsley approved of the show – which is made in English. She said: ‘They can take their clothes off and swing from the lampshades if it will get viewers interested in the baroque era, which is quite a hard sell.’
In the new series, a paranoid Louis orders the French nobility to up sticks to his beloved Versailles so he can keep a closer eye on them. But this grand relocation serves only to exacerbate existing rivalries, and very quickly these tensions lead to violence and murder.
The show’s risque content has not deterred some of Britain’s brightest stars from joining the cast. Greta Scacchi – star of White Mischief – plays scheming Madeleine de Foix. Playing her ambitious son Gaston is rising star Harry Hadden-Paton, who played the hapless Herbert Pelham, husband of Lady Edith Crawley, in Downton Abbey.
The BBC’s decision to screen a second series, from French broadcaster Canal Plus, will raise eyebrows given that series one was so controversial. That reportedly contained 36 X-rated scenes. The show’s historical adviser, Mathieu Da Vinha, said: ‘A producer told me nowadays a TV series has to have a sex scene or violence every 15 minutes, although this was not a specific rule.’ The BBC said the show’s content was ‘nothing beyond the expectations of a post-watershed UK television audience’.