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It’s unlikely there are many people - gay or straight - who haven’t heard of Tipping the Velvet, writes Hilary Wardle. It created a generation of lesbians who can’t hear the words ‘oyster’, ‘mermaid’ or ‘Rosie’ without instantly being whisked back to the camp, bawdy world of the music hall and their first glimpse of lovely Keeley Hawes in her birthday suit.

However, the problem with Tipping the Velvet - and the other Waters adaptations - is that due to their long held position at the top of the Historical Lesbian Drama Awareness Scale you’ve probably seen them a hundred times or more.

So to refresh your palate we’ve plundered the telly vaults to find three historical TV treats you’ve (possibly) never heard of: Between Two Women, Daphne and Portrait Of A Marriage.

Between Two Women is a little known, understated, straight-to-video lesbian gem. It’s also the only place you can see Marsha from Spaced affect a Huddersfield accent while pretending to be the sister of a closeted, slightly horse-like 1950s housewife with a crush on her son’s schoolteacher.

Ellen, the housewife in question, is married to a bullish Yorkshireman called Hardy who works in a factory and who seems to spend an inordinate amount of time (possibly months on end) in the family’s outdoor toilet. Although that might be an editing issue.

Their son is a delicate type with a gift for art. His skills are nurtured and encouraged by his friendly, middle class teacher, Miss Thompson. Unfortunately the lad’s father isn’t very impressed with his son’s talent (“it’s bloomin’ women’s work, by ‘eck“), leading to tensions between the two parents.

Ellen and Miss Thompson gradually build their joint support of the son into a deeply affecting and romantic mutual understanding. You may have to grit your teeth at first to get past some rather hammy acting by the supporting cast (and the fact Ellen looks a tiny bit like Lurch from the Addams Family in a headscarf) but the two leads put in a tasteful and gripping performance as two strong women trying to bridge a divide that’s as much class-based as it is to do with sexuality.

Class divides don’t really come into the other two historical series on offer: they primarily deal with interactions between equally privileged and well off women who could get away with a darn sight more jiggery-pokery than the ‘lower orders’ (as long as they weren’t too obvious about it).

For example Daphne, the 2007 account of Daphne Du Maurier’s infatuation with her publisher’s wife, deals with people so posh they somehow manage to fit extra ‘y’s and ‘h’s into their words.

“Oh Ellen, hyow cyan hyou syay thyat hyou dyon’t lyove myeh? Ai simpleh dyon’t believe it. Sorry, hyit.”

The cut glass accent gets a bit wearing at times: it might be an idea to keep an episode of Coronation Street on standby and watch it at intervals to give your ears a rest.

Daphne Du Maurier was the J.K. Rowling of her time: her novel Rebecca flying off the shelves more quickly than publishers could print it. Unfortunately for Du Maurier (and, to a lesser extent, we viewers), her love for her publisher’s wife was unrequited; meaning Daphne, like Between Two Women, is rather lacking on the sex front.

However, there is a series that provides plenty of ‘you know what’, but it wasn’t made in this decade: it barely even scrapes into the last. In fact, it’s nearly 22 years old.

It might be hard to believe, but over two decades ago (and 12 years before Tipping the Velvet scandalised and enthralled the nation with its rude romps and cross-dressing) a groundbreaking BBC drama set the standard for on screen historical girl/girl action.

Portrait Of A Marriage is a four part series covering several years in the life of Bloomsbury Group novelist, poet (and gardener) Vita Sackville-West.

The narrative is largely drawn from the heady, heated letters sent to Vita by her lover Violet Trefusis as well as Vita’s son’s story of his parents’ relationship. Interestingly, despite scores of lesbian affairs, Vita remained devoted to her equally gay husband Harold ‘Hadji’ Nicolson throughout their many years of marriage.

Tall, stately Janet McTeer is the perfect Vita. She portrays a woman torn in two by life and her own nature. She somehow manages to be simultaneously reserved and passionate, calm and frenzied. Half of her loves her husband; the rock on whom she’s built her life, the other half is transfixed by Violet’s exuberance, wildness and sensual charms. The sex scenes are ahead of their time*, to say the least.

Also, as much as Portrait of a Marriage is pleasingly, honestly proletarian in comparison to the other two hidden gems on offer, it’s fascinating to contemplate a world where ‘moving in together’ means running away to share an expensive, catered hotel suite in Paris.

Perhaps that explains how Violet and Vita’s burning passion for each other endured throughout the years: it must be so much easier to keep the romance alive when you don’t have to regularly exchange text messages reminding each other to pay the gas bill, pick up toilet roll and change the cat litter.

That’s the maid’s job.

*you see boobs

Posted in: Exclusives, Tv & Film |