Heads Up #16: Prime Suspect

Next week ITV3 are beginning a run of Prime Suspect stories beginning with the very first two-part story.  The series starred Helen Mirren as no-nonsense Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison, coping at the top of a very male-dominated and chauvinistic profession.  Only nine Prime Suspect stories were actually made:- Consisting of seven in its initial run from 1991-1996; and a couple of comeback stories in 2003 and 2006.

The first story from 1991 (which doesn't have an individual title) is the only one to have any nudity.  This involves Zoë Wanamaker standing at her front door and defiantly displaying her breasts to two men watching her.  I don't currently know in which of the two parts this occurs.

Prime Suspect
Story 1 (2-parts)
Part 1: Tuesday 1st September 2015 at 10pm on ITV3
Part 2: Wednesday 2nd September 2015 at 10pm on ITV3
Originally shown: 7th & 8th April 1991 on ITV

Zoë Wanamaker in Prime Suspect

UPDATE: The scene appears in part 1.

Heads Up #15: Rebus

Rebus was a series made by Scottish ITV about the detective John Rebus based upon the novels by Ian Rankin.  John Hannah was cast as Inspector Rebus and made two series each consisting of two feature-length episodes.  STV broadcast the first two in April and July 2000 and the second pair in Sept 2001.  The rest of the ITV network only showed the first episode in April 2000 and held back the second one until the other two were ready and scheduled them as a run of three in September 2001.  In the end it proved unpopular and the final episode Mortal Causes was pulled from the schedules (it finally got an airing on digital channel ITV3 in November 2004).  No more episodes were made starring John Hannah.

The series was re-booted in 2006 with Ken Stott now cast as Rebus.  He made 10 episodes over three series ending in 2007.

Earlier this year the Drama Channel began showing Rebus.  Their trailer made a play of contrasting John Hannah and Ken Stott's versions of the character.  However they decided to begin with the more popular Ken Stott run, perhaps out of concern that viewers might similarly not take to it if they started with the John Hannah episodes.

Now that the Ken Stott episodes have all been shown they are about to start showing the shorter John Hannah run starting with his first episode Black and Blue.  This initial episode has a topless scene featuring actress Clare McCarron, albeit a mortuary slab type scene.  This is the only episode of Rebus known to have any female nudity.

Rebus
Episode: 1) Black and Blue
Saturday 8th August 2015 at 9:00pm on Drama Channel
Originally shown: 26 April 2000 on ITV






Films This Week
Also on Saturday, starting at 11:55pm, BBC2 are showing Last Orders (2001) which features Claire Harman in a topless scene.  In 2003 she was one of the main regulars in series 2 of Sky1's drama about holiday reps in Ibiza, Is Harry On The Boat?, in which she was also topless in several episodes.

Ripper Street Rip off

You may not realise this if you watched the first episode of the new series of Ripper Street on Friday (31st Aug) on BBC1 ...

... but when Amazon Prime Instant Video showed the same episode last year it contained a brief topless glimpse in the scene where Adam Rothenberg (as Captain Homer Jackson) and Lydia Wilson (as Mimi Morton) return to the bed after she has looked around his room trying to work out what he does for a living.  Even then it was only the briefest of marginal glimpses, but despite it being a mere blink-and-you'd miss it moment, BBC1 still didn't think we should be allowed to see it in case we were offended (presumably - although clearly they had no worries about people being offended by the blood and gore).

In order to excise the offending nipples, but not lose any dialogue, what they did was marginally re-frame (zoom-in) the shot thereby ensuring the problematic articles were kept out of view.

Here's the bit you missed ...

Lydia Wilson in Ripper Street

Cut it out BBC! (oh they have)
It has seemed for some time now as if BBC1 have an unspoken anti-(female)-nudity policy, particularly so in "scenes of a sexual nature" in which they do their utmost to make sure nothing revealing is on show.  There are occasional exceptions when female nudity is allowed (like Sheridan Smith in The C Word) but those vanishingly few occurrences all seem to have been moments of "natural nudity" which are not part of a sexual scene.

The petty edit made to Ripper Street, clearly done for no other purpose than to hide the nipples, seems to strongly reinforce that belief.

And maybe BBC2 is going the same sorry way given their track record with this year's offerings and especially how the initially promising seeming Life In Squares episode 1 clumsily went out of its way to avoid showing anything in its sex scenes, which only a few years ago would likely have been done "properly".  There are still two episodes to go of that drama (as this is written) so best reserve judgement until it's over.

Movie Pick for Aug 2015 (week 1)

I won't do this every week but if I spot a film coming up on TV with good nudity that may otherwise be overlooked I'll try to mention it on the blog.

Here are two less-often seen films which have topless scenes involving British actresses.

Both are on this coming week on the Freeview channel Movie Mix (ch32)
(Movie Mix is known as More>Movies on Sky and Freesat)


On Wednesday 5th August at 9:00pm is Fortress 2: Re-Entry (2000) in which Liz May Brice has a couple of topless scenes (all of them in the shower).  She is one of the main actors in the film.

Liz May Brice is a fairly familiar face on British TV appearing recently in Eastenders and she was a regular in Bad Girls in 2005-2006

* * *

On Friday 7th Aug at 10:50pm is 8mm 2 (2005) in which Frances Da Costa has a topless scene.  Her role is a small one in the film playing a dancer from Brighton working in a strip club in Budapest where the film is set.  Her topless scene is in the dancers' dressing room.

Frances Da Costa (now known as Francesca Kingdon) appeared on TV as regular character Yasmin Salter in two series of Footballers Wive$: Extra Time in 2005-2006 which was ITV2's spin-off series to Footballers' Wives

8mm 2 has a lot of other nudity from actresses of other nationalities playing models or strippers, as well as from the main actress Lori Heuring.