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“Our idea for Anne Pettifer was that she’s Lydia Bennet,” explained Buffini. In this interview, Buffini explains that the character of Anne Pettifer, a young woman in Quigley’s employ, was inspired by one of Jane Austen’s creations. It wasn’t only real life that provided inspiration for Harlots, but also the literature of the age. The inspirations that fed into the characters of Nancy Birch, Harriet Lennox, and Mary Cooper are all discussed in this excellent and detailed article by historian and Whores of Yore curator Dr. The autobiography of sex shop owner Teresia Philips offered some help. Lydia Quigley’s real-world counterpart – Elizabeth Needham – who was notorious enough to feature as a caricature in the Hogarth paintings used in Harlots’ opening credits (she’s the woman luring the freshly arrived innocent to her sordid doom) offered a little more. found a paucity of surviving 18th-century writing by women in the industry, so were forced to make several leaps of the imagination while planning the series. Merely touching on real-world inspirations leaves Harlotsfree to rewrite history to suit the needs of the story, and not to slavishly follow a prepared path for any of its characters.īuffini and co.

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The Old Bailey trial records provided another source of real-life cases tried against bawds and sex workers – like Ann Duck, the inspiration for Violet Cross (Rosalind Eleazar).

Among its entries is courtesan Charlotte Hayes, who, along with the infamous Kitty Fisher, provided inspiration for the character of Charlotte Wells. The list in question was an annual directory/review compendium of London’s brothel workers that’s been described as the equivalent of an 18th-century Yelp for the sex trade. When Buffini and Newman began to research the period, a starting point was historian Hallie Rubenhold’s 2005 book, The Covent Garden Ladies: The Extraordinary Story of Harris’s List. Harlotsdoesn’t feature real historical characters, but its ensemble is drawn from a variety of real-world sources. The sale and purchase of sex, its fluctuating value (virginity, real or fabricated could be auctioned off to aristocrats for £50 – closer to £1000 in today’s money – while others made shillings standing up in alleyways) and the short lifespan of those who sold it isn’t just a backdrop to these characters’ lives, it’s the fabric of them.

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Despite a backstory as terrible as they come, Margaret has emerged a fighter with a keen sense of how to survive in a world where even aristocratic women have little economic power.Įconomics is Harlots’ real subject, says Buffini. That’s the mantra of Margaret Wells, former harlot, now a bawd who runs her own “Disorderly House.” Played by Samantha Morton, she’s mother to celebrated courtesan Charlotte (Jessica Findlay Brown) and her beloved new-to-the-game Lucy (Eloise Smyth). Just as The Wire’s focus on the drug trade widened to explore its impact on politics, education, and the press, Harlots’ focus on the sex trade widens to explore justice, religion, the aristocracy, and, at the root of it all, money. Harlotsis set two and a half centuries ago, but its themes are timeless.īuffini has described the role of sex in Harlotsas the same role played by violence in The Sopranos – it’s the characters’ job, which is what makes them unusual, but not what makes them interesting.

Unlike elsewhere on TV, Harlots’ brothel scenes wouldn’t offer titillation they would show a workplace at work.Īfter the first and second seasons went out, co-creator Alison Newman was delighted with positive feedback received from viewers in the sex industry who said they recognized their own working lives and experiences on screen. “We knew right from the word go that this would really work seen from a female gaze,” says Buffini. Key to that approach was the use of female directors, led by head director Coky Giedroyc.

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Having noted how often sex scenes on TV are filmed with the camera looking down on a supine woman, Harlotswanted to show things differently, co-creator Moira Buffini told The Frame. Nudity and sex acts are obviously central to the show’s premise, but it presents them from a new angle. “Everything from the whore’s eye view,” is the rule on Harlots, says producer Alison Owen. It uses Hogarth’s instructive moralism (the six paintings of A Harlot’s Progress depict an innocent girl falling under the wicked spell of a city bawd, becoming a courtesan and a streetwalker, going to prison, and dying of the pox) for its own ends, wittily repurposing a historical cartoon as the entryway to a rich human drama. It’s a bold start that announces Harlots’ defiantly effervescent approach to a period and industry – sex work in the 18th century – that could in other hands be wall-to-wall syphilis and woe.