Now Phwoar and Peace’s men get their clothes off!
IT has shown us steamy love scenes, blood- soaked battlefields and even an incestuous relationship.
So you might think the BBC’s sexed up adaptation of War and Peace would no longer be able to shock its fans.
But the show appears to have reached new levels – featuring a scene of full-frontal male nudity in Sunday’s episode, half an hour after the 9pm watershed.
The sequence showed soldiers bathing nude in a lake, with one man walking towards the camera with nothing to preserve his modesty. And some of the 5.2million viewers were certainly taken aback. One wrote on Twitter: ‘I just saw a penis on #WarAndPeace on BBC1 ... is that even legal??’ Another added: ‘That was unexpected ... and on a Sunday too!’
But a third pointed out that there have been plenty of nude women, writing: ‘Yay, five episodes in and finally some balance.’
The actor himself, 45-year-old Oscar Pearce, said the nudity was a ‘no-brainer because the Russian army weren’t supplied with swimming costumes’, adding that it was not about ‘exhibitionism’ but about ‘telling the story’.
But he admitted he did not think the BBC would use the scene, which was filmed in Lithuania last May. Mr Pearce, who lives in London with wife, actress Ellie Piercy, and two daughters aged four and six, added that he thought of it as his ‘Daniel Craig moment’, referring to a shot in Casino Royale where James Bond emerges from the sea (albeit in blue trunks).
The six-part series, which ends on Sunday, has gained a reputation for the salacious, particularly with Tuppence Middleton’s ris- que displays as Helene Kuragina, who beds a succession of characters including her own brother. The actress, 28, told The Times she does not understand why viewers are shocked by the sex scenes but not the bloodshed.