Secret Diary Of A Call Girl [2007]

Average customer rating:

Fantasy, and nothing more

Why doesnt everyone become a hooker, it looks like fun

Brilliant

Horribly misguided, badly scripted and entirely lacking in drama.

Brilliant!!! I loved it!

Secret Diary Of A Call Girl [2007]
Starring: Billie Piper , and Iddo Goldberg
Director: Yann Demange , and Susan Tully
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B000YPTMBE
Release Date: 2008-01-07

Amazon.co.uk Review

Billie Piper managed to avoid the dangers of typecasting, when she leapt to Secret Diary Of A Call Girl soon after departing full time work on Doctor Who. And while the series itself may lack a little polish and charm, there's little doubting the ferocity of Piper in the central role.

Secret Diary Of A Call Girl is, of course, based on the huge best-selling book of the same name, and it follows a woman with a dual life. Her profession? A London prostitute. To anyone who asks? She's a secretary. And while much of Secret Diary Of A Call Girl is given over to Piper's explicit professional duties, there's also the core of a drama as she struggles to deal with the conflicting sides of her life.

Yet this is never, ahem, fleshed out particularly well, with the programme makers too often distracted themselves by the titillation over the substance. And the problem is that once the sexually-charged scenes are over, there's not always enough in the tank for an episode to justify its running time.

Piper, to her credit, puts in sterling work here, and the Secret Diary Of A Call Girl will do her continually rising star no harm at all. It's also an easy, unambitious drama that does manage to entertain. As a result, this complete set of all the episodes from the first series still has merit, and is still worth checking out, it's just there was an opportunity here to do something a little bit more. --Jon Foster

Customer Reviews:

Fantasy, and nothing more.......2008-02-07

Phew, a lot of people seem to have got their knickers in a twist over this one... and in so doing, they're playing right into ITV's eager hands. (Innuendo entirely intentional.) How dare they! Suggesting that prostitution is a glamourous, enjoyable and entirely safe profession! How can they promote such a vile notion? How dare Billie Piper, with her adoring youthful audience, take on so irresponsible a role? How dare they suggest that this is how things are in the real world?

Answer: 'Secret Diary of a Call Girl' is NOT representative of the real world, in any way, shape or form. It's about as indicative of the realities of the sex trade as the 'Bad Boys' movies are of police work. And we, as grown human beings - and yes, grown ups are the target audience here (over 18's at least) - should have the common sense to be able to recognise this. Alright, so it's based on what are supposedly the real-life memoirs of a professional high-class call girl; I haven't read the blog/book, though from what I understand it their veracity has been brought into question. To put it bluntly, that's neither here nor there. This isn't a documentary. This is a bit of saucy, late night escapism, the kind of which we don't often see from a major British television broadcaster. And, as such, I'm happy to admit that I rather enjoyed it.

It's clear from the get-go that 'Secret Diary of a Call Girl' is designed as lightweight, easy entertainment. For starters, the episodes are only about 25 minutes long. Obviously that doesn't allow a lot of time for intricate plot and character work. What it does allow is for the show to get straight to the meat of the matter, figuratively and literally. It's a show about sex, and it doesn't shy away from that. Within the opening minutes of the first episode, we have our nymphette protagonist stripped down to her Victoria's Secrets, speaking with her mouth full - and that's just the beginning! Let's not be coy about this, for, after all, the show's marketing certainly wasn't: the main draw here is the promise of the hitherto sweet and innocent leading lady getting nude and naughty, Billie following gamely (again, pun intended) in the footsteps of innumerable former child stars such as Drew Barrymore and Alyssa Milano, taking a sexually explicit role in order to show us she's all grown up now. And that shouldn't be taken as a negative, for she certainly does a good job, handling the very provocative dialogue and content with confidence. And as for the nudity... one of the smartest moves on the part of the programme makers is the way the show teases the viewer with Billie's body, practically making a burlesque routine out of it: starting out with only a few tantalising glimpses of nakedness, keeping the audience tuning back in hungry for more as just that little bit more of the young star's anatomy is exposed episode by episode, until finally all is revealed mid-series, in a two-girl one-guy threesome scene...

Now some of you are calling me a perv. Fine. I'm not even going to deny it. Once again, that's what this show is really all about: unabashed titilation. To expect a hard-hitting insight into the realities of prostitution is to completely miss the point. 'Secret Diary of a Call Girl' isn't aiming to be Ken Loach; it's aiming to be for the new generation what 'Emmanuelle,' 'Nine and a Half Weeks' and 'Red Shoe Diaries' were for generations past. And I think it's pretty successful in that. So sue me.

Why doesnt everyone become a hooker, it looks like fun.......2008-01-30

Prostitution as a life style choice? This is all pretty absurd a viewpoint, and this is where it falls before it begins unfortunately.

For an ITV2 drama, maybe I was expecting too much, but this is way below what I imagined a drama could ever be.

With such a potentially dangerous and seedy profession you would expect that this poor drama would contain some morality tale behind it, some suspense and dilemmias for the character of bell du jour to overcome but this is severely lacking. The only issues she faces are that she gets bored whilst waiting for a client to stop working when he paid for the weekend or when a guy is not attracted to her.

This is hardly approching the subject with the care and disection it needed and what is unsettling is to think what is the message of this drama to the audience?

Is it that prostitutes love their jobs so it is great to use them and everyone should because its all a big carry on film. Thats what it feels like it is saying, which is very alarming.

Although, Billie Piper is a very likable actress which in many ways is bad because it will give this terrible show a much bigger audience than it deserves.

If you want soft porn, buy soft porn, but stay away from this and let it die because the idea of major television channels promoting Being a prostitute is very unnerving to me

Brilliant.......2008-01-29

I loved this tv show and was glued to it every week, Billie Piper portray's Belle excellently. Definately a must for people in there 20's and 30's!!

Horribly misguided, badly scripted and entirely lacking in drama........2008-01-25

My god, this is dire! Essentially a single episode of The Red Shoe Diaries stretched out over the length of a full series; with dull characters, plodding scripts and not a single ounce of sexual tension to reel us in. The whole thing just seems very cheap and completely artless; with the entire series shot in a cataract-inducing soft-focus that recalls the very best (or worst?) of 1970's soft core erotica -- though even this is noticeably spoiled somewhat by the fact that much of the sex has a very seedy, low-rent feel to it, bordering on the desperation. Within the first ten minutes we get a lifeless monologue about what living in London in the 21st century means and how the general perceived stereotype of a prostitute as being an emaciated young street urchin dolling out hand-jobs for loose change is entirely wrong, and instead, they are ultra-glamorous young sophisticates who wear designer satin dresses, diamond necklaces and only do business in the finest of five star hotels. This is completely untrue.

In the lead role, Billie Piper sheds her girl-pop image (and most of her clothes) in what is surely the programme's unique selling point; with the general slant of the marketing (look at the cover of this DVD for example) generally geared around the idea that if you want to see Rose Tyler semi-naked, then look no further than this! For me there was very little in the way of character development to keep the story fresh or even appealing, with what little development there actually was making the character look stupid, unappealing and entirely unsympathetic. She makes mistakes, she tells clients more than they need to know and she gets herself in situations that would, under any normal circumstances, have been incredibly dangerous. Obviously this is all just a soft-core fantasia though, with no real effort gone into creating a believable world of prostitution that looks at both the high-class decadence and low rent desperation of the "profession", or indeed, the various reasons why someone might actually end up as a prostitute in the first place. Piper's character Belle comes across as entirely arrogant, smug and self-satisfied as she looks down her nose at those other characters not enjoying her particular standard of living; despite failing to realise the toll that her profession is having on her real-life persona and the everyday relationships that she enjoys away from the prying eyes of her matriarchal-like pimp (Cherie Lunghi) -- an interesting germ of an idea that could have been developed into something truly rewarding but instead is used only as background fodder.

What we have instead are a number of narrative dead-ends with no tension and absolutely no drama, all backed up by lots of pouting and preening, a good shot of Billie's bare buttocks and a couple of exposed breasts. If you consider this to be great value for money then, by all means, add it to your shopping basket, but I for one honestly can't see any real reason to own this DVD, let alone watch the episodes more than once. The scripting is weak, the performances worse (especially from Piper, who has never been a decent actress -- Doctor Who included) and direction that lacks anything approaching style, flair or imagination. Instead, we get something that feels like one of those late night episodes of Hollyoaks, with the overblown melodrama, gratuitous nudity (because it's post-watershed and they CAN!!) and an adolescent desire to try and shock the quaint foundations of middle-England, despite having absolutely nothing controversial going on, at all!

The Secret Diary of a Call Girl [sic] is undoubtedly one of the worst things I saw on television in 2007 - every bit as bad as that appalling Kay Mellor drama about sex therapists - and another slap in the face for those of us who expect high-concept television such as this to be challenging, imaginative and unlike anything else we've ever seen before. This is substandard dross that aspires to nothing other than tightening the trousers of bored middle-aged men, or preaching a misguided message that prostitution is a little bit fun. Woosh! Or something like that?

Brilliant!!! I loved it! .......2008-01-25

I loved this show. I think it will probably appeal to people like me, older teenagers and people in early 20's as is a bit more risque. If your of that age definately watch it. Its brilliant!!! Some excellent scenes and jokes! And Billie Piper is hot so all the better!

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