Tipping The Velvet

Tipping the Velvet is a 2002 BBC television drama serial based on the bestselling debut novel by Sarah Waters of the same name. It originally screened in three episodes on BBC Two and was produced for the BBC by the independent production company Sally Head Productions. 

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Keeley Hawes stars as Kitty Butler and Rachael Stirling as Nan Astley.

As charismatic heroine Nan Astley (Rachael Stirling) grows into womanhood, she realises that she's attracted to women, not men. It leads her into a series of lesbian adventures.

The glamorous world of 19th century music hall provides the backdrop for Nan's first love affair with Kitty (Keeley Hawes), a popular male impersonator music hall star. They become a double act both on and off stage, but their manager Walter (John Bowe) wins Kitty's hand as she ultimately chooses the safety of a traditional life rather than risking the public disapproval of her true feelings for Nan.

Devastated by Kitty's betrayal, Nan takes to the streets to survive, in her guise as a male impersonator, and finds a niche in the Victorian sexual underworld. She's drawn to Florence (Jodhi May), but is unable to tell her the truth about her secret street life.

Instead, she's spotted by the wealthy widow, Diana Lethaby (Anna Chancellor), a woman in her thirties who is amoral, capricious and predatory. She introduces Nan into a world of luxury and debauchery, and makes Nan her sexual slave.

When Nan is thrown back onto the streets, she searches for Florence, who is initially deeply mistrustful, but a strong bond develops between them that blossoms into real and lasting love.

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 Diva Magazine: Tipping The Velvet (2002)

We've been waiting years for the television production of Sarah Waters' novel Tipping the Velvet, and now it's here. But does it live up to our expectations? Absolutely, says Jane Czyzselska.

Rachael Stirling and Keeley Hawes are bowled over. In fact, the young stars - heterosexual and bisexual respectively - of the television adaptation of Sarah Waters' epic lesbian love story Tipping the Velvet, appear to be more excited than kids at Christmas about their participation in the soon-to-be-screened trilogy. Indeed, any questions about taking on the richly Sapphic storyline are met with fervent protestations: "It's the part of a lifetime for any young actress," explains Rachael, who plays Nan, the oyster girl from Whitstable who falls for touring male impersonator Kitty. "You have to understand, you just don't fucking get parts like that. Ever."

Were we in the Groucho, pie-eyed and emotional, one might put Rachael's endearing enthusiasm down to drink. In fact, we're taking early-morning coffee at the drinking club's nemesis, The Hempel hotel. Almost Zen in its ambience - the reception area is seamless floor-to-ceiling white marble - our meeting place provides a fitting contrast to Rachael's fiery energy.

"I always think people assume you have a vast library of scripts to choose from," Rachael explains, "but it's so rare to find a believable part for a woman and also one that mirrors everyone's journey of personal discovery." Vibrant and gamine, twenty-five-year-old Rachael has the makings of a modern lesbian pin-up. Dressed in an ultra-fashionable black poncho and denim jeans, her messy ear-length hair bestows a studied boyish air. Later she will tell me that she prefers to walk the streets with head down and hands stuffed in pockets, like a boy, so as to avoid unwanted attention from leery men.

Keeley, 26, blonde, clear-skinned and more boyish still, arrives late thanks to an unfortunate car-clamping incident, but is quick to echo her co-star's opinion of Waters' acclaimed novel: "It's extraordinary, isn't it?" Fresh from her leading role in Spooks - the recent BBC series about life in the MI5 - she says that Tipping... couldn't be more different: "I love costume drama, but this didn't feel like one. It feels really modern because of the way it's been filmed. Costume dramas can feel quite staid but this doesn't have to stick any sense of decorum because it's not based in a posh country house. You know, it's rough round the edges."

The gritty world of 19th-century music hall provides the backdrop for Nan Astley's (Rachael's) first love affair with Kitty Butler (Keeley), a popular cross-dressing music hall star. They become a double act, both on and off stage, but their manager Walter (John Bowe) wins Kitty's hand as she ultimately chooses the safety of a traditional life rather than risking public disapproval of her true feelings for Nan.

Dubbed a lesbian Moll Flanders, Andrew Davies' production slips effortlessly from page to screen, sticking closely to the original storyline. Widely considered a master of TV adaptations - think Pride and Prejudice, House of Cards, Middlemarch - Davies is known for his racy touch. In fact, his somewhat fragrant stage directions reduce the two actresses to a giggly shadow of their former poise when they recall his reference to, ahem, "cunty fingers" in a recent production of Othello. "Some of his stage directions are unspeakable," says Rachael, who played alongside Keeley in the theatre [sic] production.

Davies triumphs yet again with his adaptation of Tipping the Velvet and, with the help of colleagues such as camerawoman Cinders Forshaw, evocatively depicts the story exactly as one would imagine. Beautiful, almost dreamlike images of the Whitstable seafront public house in which Rachael learnt to shuck oysters like a pro are cut with endless blustery, pale blue romantic seascapes. "I got scars all over my hand learning how to shuck oysters," Rachael reveals, miming the action with sound effects as she tells the story. "I got through an ice bucket the size of a small car full of oysters, going ptchung, ptchung. I wasn't very good at first, but I did get better eventually."

While filming in Whitstable, the local newspaper rather sensationally announced the racier moments of the story to a somewhat hostile response. "They didn't like us that much," Rachael explains. "I heard of people who had gone to one of the pubs near where we were filming and said, 'What the fuck are they filming lesbians on the beach for? Whitstable's going to become the new Brighton.' But I heard that it already is," Rachael enthuses. "I heard that there are really comfy beach huts and a rife lesbian community. What fun!"

This seems as good a time as any to ask about the sex scenes. How did the two girls feel about recreating the lead characters' tender passion on screen together? "Just wait till you see us, because it's really beautiful, it's one of the sexiest love scenes I've ever seen," Rachael says, beaming. "Sex is a funny old thing because you've just got to get on with it. I think her being a girl (and knowing Keeley, too) did make it easier. Neither of us found it difficult."

Keeley: "The love scene was absolutely fine. I mean, you're in fits of giggles with boys, and with girls it's no different, except there's a lot more to play with, with another woman."
Cue fits of giggles. Keeley to Rachael: "We were all right, weren't we?"
Rachael: "Mmm."
Keeley: "We had good snogs."
Rachael: "Good snogs and lots of licking. My boyfriend was watching it the other day, and said, 'You didn't tell me there were tongues'!"
Keeley: "Everyone was asking me about the love scenes, but they were so far from my mind because I was much more worried about the singing and dancing and whether my voice would be up to par."

"Actually," Rachael adds, laughing, "the most challenging thing for me was being painted gold while wearing a dildo." She is of course referring to a scene later in the story, when, devastated and heartbroken post-Kitty, Nan takes to the streets as a rent boy. Spotted by wealthy widow Diana Lethaby (Anna Chancellor), a woman in her thirties who lives by her own rules, Nan is introduced into a world of luxury and debauchery and virtually becomes her sex slave. "There was a moment when I was standing behind a curtain, just before Diana reveals me as Hermaphrodite, with five make-up ladies. One on each arm, legs, bosoms and one going, 'bend over, are you embarrassed?' as she painted my crack."

Tipping the Velvet makes for compulsive comedic viewing, but Keeley and Rachael are keen to stress the importance of the story, both for themselves and for lesbian fans of the book. "I hope it's not a let-down. I hope it's not," Keeley says and stops for a moment, staring ahead, her forehead furrowed. "Do you know what I mean?" Another pause. "I'm going to say something very stupid." Rachael comes to her aid: "You mean you hope it doesn't let down all the people who are anticipating it, right?" Keeley nods. Has she felt this way before about a role she's played? "No. It's particularly this. I don't want to patronise people." She means lesbians, but her hesitation suggests a depth of feeling for the significance of the story that is beyond her own direct experience. "It's true to the book. Except for a slight change at the end. And I completely related to Kitty. Well not completely, because I'm not a lesbian. I'm bi."

Rachael appears in virtually every scene in the trilogy - her first bash at playing a lead role - and spent a gruelling nine-and-a-half weeks filming. As a showcase for the burgeoning talents of both actresses, it could hardly perform better and in the final analysis it packs a punch that will delight fans of the book. "I'm fucking proud of it," Rachael says with conviction. "God, I hope for Sarah (Waters) and everyone that they like it too. It's just really good telly. Which makes paying for your TV licence a little less agonising!" 

The novel Tipping the Velvet was written by Sarah Waters, with acclaimed dramatist Andrew Davies adapting it for the screen.

''Sarah Waters writes from a deep understanding not only of the great Victorian writers, but also the underground literature of the time - the pornographic fiction and private memoirs which revealed the truth about what men and women thought and did in the later years of the 19th century,'' highlights Davies.

''She also writes with an extraordinary, gutsy zest for life in all its often comic complexity, especially the sexual life. The effect of this is sometimes shocking, but always illuminating and life-enhancing.''

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