VICPHWOARIA!
Pining for Poldark? Meet the hunk (baring far more than a hairy chest) set to turn ITV’s Sunday night drama into...
DISPLAYING an admirably athletic physique as he runs naked into the sea, he’s the latest costume drama hunk to strip off and set female pulses racing.
This is Victoria star David Burnett – following in the footsteps of Poldark’s Aidan Turner and Colin Firth in Pride And Prejudice to win the hearts of millions of women viewers.
Our exclusive pictures from the new series of the hit ITV drama, which starts tonight, show the actor as lowly footman Joseph, who embarks on an illicit relationship with Sophie, Duchess of Monmouth.
The affair – with the Duchess desperate to escape a loveless marriage and Joseph longing to break free from the confines of life below stairs – threatens to scandalise the Royal court.
Unable to control their feelings despite the social chasm that looms between them in the straitened Victorian era, their romance is ignited with a torrid kiss.
But it is 6ft-tall Burnett’s naked swim that is set to catapult him to stardom, very much as bottom-baring scenes did for Tom Hiddleston in The Night Manager and Richard Madden in Bodyguard. The Royal Shakespeare Company actor will also be seen locked in a passionate clinch in a cupboard with Sophie – played by Lily Travers, granddaughter of Born Free star Virginia McKenna – just yards away from the Queen and her court at a costume ball. In a memorably racy exchange, he asks her: ‘Where exactly do you require my assistance, your grace.’
She puts his hand on her breast and says: ‘Just here’. He asks: ‘Here?’ before grab- bing her bottom and say- ing: ‘Or here?’ They then kiss passionately. After they go their separate ways, Joseph is cornered by his boss, who asks: ‘Where the blazes have you been?’
The footman quips: ‘Answering the call of nature.’
Both characters are fictitious but their relationship echoes real-life love affairs between aristocrats and their servants.
A source close to the production said: ‘David is just one of those young actors who, when he walked into the audition, everyone said, “Oh yes, we will have some of that, thank you very much.” He was fine with the nude scene and didn’t bat an eyelid. He is a man who is very comfortable in his own skin.’
Burnett has appeared in RSC productions of Antony and Cleopatra, Julius Caesar and Titus Andronicus and already had small roles in TV dramas including Manhunt and Endeavour and the Tom Cruise blockbuster The Mummy.