The Herald - The Herald Magazine
TV preview Ladies of the night living in hope of brighter days
What’s the story?
Selling Sunset.
I’ll need more information.
The third series of the addictive Netflix reality show begins streaming this week. It focuses on the super-glam estate agents at The Oppenheim Group as they sell multi-milliondollar properties to the rich and famous in Los Angeles. It is, quite frankly, jaw-dropping stuff.
How so?
Well, there’s the eye-watering prices for a start. One swanky pad was listed for a cool $44m (£34m).
Yowza. What do you get for that?
Five bedrooms, nine bathrooms, four hot tubs, an infinity pool with waterfall, a sprawling spa, a wine cellar, a movie theatre, a 15-car garage, and a rooftop deck with views over the city.
Did it sell?
Not during the first two series. A sneak peek in the trailer for the latest instalment suggests that a buyer may have finally been forthcoming. Which is good news for the agent who sold the property as it comes with a hefty commission worth around $1.2m (£924,000).
Oooft. What else can we expect?
Drama, drama, drama. There’s a lot of bickering. And backstabbing.
Can’t they all just get along?
Meh. Where’s the fun in that?
True. When can I watch?
Selling Sunset returns to Netflix on Friday.
SUSAN SWARBRICK
LIKE the women it portrays,
is a survivor. The drama set among prostitutes in 18th century London first displayed its wares on ITV Encore in 2017, only for the channel to go off air the following year. It carried on showing in the US for three series, then the plug was reportedly pulled again.
At this point Auntie swooped, offering all three seasons a good home on BBC2. With such a pass the parcel history you could be forgiven for thinking this period romp is not very good, but look closer. Created by Moira Buffini (who wrote the screenplay for the acclaimed 2011 adaptation of Jane Eyre) and Alison Newman, and written by Buffini, the cast is led by Samantha Morton and Lesley Manville, no less, as rival madams. Surrounding them are some of the best young women actors working in television.
Created by women and largely starring women, Harlots proclaims its feminist credentials from the off. As a character strides through a grimy, bustling Covent Garden to a jaunty soundtrack, bold captions in capitals set the scene: “1763. LONDON IS BOOMING.
AND ONE IN FIVE WOMEN MAKES A LIVING SELLING SEX.” There, that got your attention, didn’t it?
Much as it exposes the plight of these women, Harlots is not above having bawdy fun, most of it at the expense of the rich men who use and abuse them. Many a buttock is bared in the services of period drama. A lot of the lines are too ripe for a public print, and the language, my dears, the language!
At the heart of the tale is the rivalry between Margaret Wells (Morton) and Lydia Quigley (Manville). Quigley has worked her way up to Soho (then more salubrious than Covent Garden) and Wells has ambitions to follow.
But first she needs some serious money, which she will get by auctioning off her youngest daughter’s virginity, just as she sold her eldest girl’s. It was a tradition set by her own mother, who sold young Margaret for a pair of shoes.
Harlots is never far from such darkness. But there is a lot of spirit here too. These women are more than bodies for sale – there are brains here besides, and some very clear-eyed assessments of the world and its ways which are as relevant now as they were then. As Wells tells one of her daughters, “Money is a woman’s only power in this world.”