Secret Diary Of A Call Girl - ITV

Billie Piper plays Belle, an upmarket London call girl in the upcoming ITV2 debut homegrown drama Secret Diary Of A Call Girl.

Taken from the best-selling, real life diaries of The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl, this eight-part series is an eye-opening insight into the life of a high class escort. While the real Belle maintains her anonymity, the diaries based on her blog and first published in 2005, have been turned into fresh, sexy stories by a team of women writers led by Lucy Prebble.

Producer Chrissy Skinns says: “The Belle of the blog and the books is bright, direct and funny: all in all, a strong portrayal of a contemporary woman. Our Belle is equally intelligent, confident and witty, but probably displays more vulnerability: she is fictional and that is an important distinction to make, particularly as we were keen to preserve the real Belle’s anonymity. So the series is not an adaptation of the book but rather it became an excellent springboard.

“We have created a dramatic narrative and the stories each week reveal something about Belle’s life: from literally what her work day entails, to the difficulties of balancing her professional life with her personal life, which is mainly focused on her relationship with her best friend, Ben. The writers have mined the humour of these situations as well as finding incredibly touching moments as the two worlds collide.

“It is important that the writers of the show are all women, talking about prostitution from the female view point. This goes some way in challenging any accusation that it could be titillating, rather we want people to see Belle in a true, honest light without being apologetic for her. This is a view of womanhood without objectifying it or, on the other hand, being adulatory.”

She continues: “London was a big part of our shoot. We wanted to show the capital in a celebratory way, appreciating what it has to offer. So often London is shown as a gritty, grungy sort of city but in Secret Diary of a Call Girl it is a grown up, cosmopolitan place to be – rather like New York is reflected in Sex And The City. Inevitably, locations such as upmarket hotels, were really important to the series in order to show the sexy, not seedy, side of London.

Chrissy explains that the level of research into prostitution in all its forms was thorough. “There are as many types of prostitute as there are people and they gave us stories and told us about their lives. Actual escorts read the scripts and were extremely helpful. What really came across in the main was that the women at this end of the market had chosen to be hookers, they weren’t on drugs or forced into it, which is, of course, another side of prostitution. We’re not pretending that doesn’t exist; it’s just not what our ‘Belle’ is about. The women we talked to genuinely liked their profession. They explained that you have to find a bond with each client, you can’t despise them and you obviously need to like sex with strangers.

“The whole team researched relevant websites, while Yann, the director, and Greg, the designer visited a fetish festival looking for interesting props. When we came to shoot an episode about S & M, a dominatrix came on set and explained the safety elements, where not to hit a client and how to walk on a man wearing stilettos…”

Chrissy continues: “It took a lot of courage on the part of the actors to be so exposed on set but we always wanted this to look sexy; neither coy nor porno. And the sex always tells a story, it is never gratuitous. The show is a real departure for Billie but she was great, trusted her directors and did the job even in difficult circumstances, such as wearing a rubber dress under hot lights (talcum powder always advised here).

“I don’t have a particular moral stance on prostitution, unless of course it’s against someone’s will. It’s always going to be there, so it has to be worth a look at. It’s a fascinating world that you never see on TV in quite this way - a long way from murdered hookers in detective shows.”

Controller of ITV2, Zai Bennett, says: “ITV2 is all about brand new, exclusive, young programming so we’re absolutely delighted that Billie is starring as Belle in our first ever unique drama; Secret Diary of a Call Girl. Both Billie and Secret Diary are perfectly matched to ITV2’s young audience.”