Now then, it's not often that a well-made period drama series gets extensive coverage, but Tipping The Velvet is a bit different.
[A clip of Tipping the Velvet plays, in which Nan, covered in gold paint and wearing a strap-on, is led into a room full of women.]
Ladies and gentlemen, Rachael Stirling!
[Rachael enters, wearing a red dress.] Why did you use that clip?!
Well, it seemed to me to be representative.
Did it?!
Is it true that you kept that golden dildo?
I have, yeah. Well, it was a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and…
Well, you say!
I put it on my wall. It's the only thing to hold the weight of my Afghan coat!
I wondered what you were going to say then!
It's a coathanger. It's a coathanger, and boy does it hold a lot of coats!
I bet it does.
It's yay big [demonstrates size with hands] — it's enormous.
You know, when I watch that scene of you with the kind of ringmaster figure bringing you out, and the curtains open and there's all the leering audience and you standing there, it kind of reminded me of something.
What was that?
Well, I couldn't remember. It was nagging at me. I'd seen it somewhere, and then I remembered.
[A clip of The Avengers plays, showing Emma Peel in a similar scene.]
Very similar, you think?
[laughs] I'd never seen that clip before!
Yeah, but it is a very similar set-up.
God, it's strange, that!
In case you don't know, that was Rachael's mum. That's not a joke, it is Rachael's mum. So your mum is Diana Rigg?
Yeah, yeah.
Who was Mrs Peel. We've got a lovely picture of you two together.
[A photo of a young Rachael with Diana is shown. They are both wearing large white hats on their heads.]
Look at the…
Oh my god! That's a very long time ago.
What is the medal?
That must be when mum got her MBE, I think. And she obviously gave me that hat! Bitch!
I love to see a matching muff.
[Rachael laughs a lot]
You all right? Do you know you've been in the Daily Star on a regular basis? Tipping the Velvet week, this is the first one. You're actually on Page 3 of the Star, look!
[Page 3 of the Daily Star is shown, which features a photo from Tipping the Velvet. Rachael laughs more]
And every day they had girls in what they called 'Victorian underwear'!
Why is my tit hanging out? It looks like it's flopping about all over the place. I'm leaking!
When the football was on they printed a timetable.
I saw that!
So you could watch the England vs. Macedonia game, but still turn over for the dirty bits in Tipping the Velvet.
They did: 9.17pm, bottom; 9.13pm, flash of left breast. It was minute-to-minute. Did you follow that guide?
No, I watched the match!
So did I! Why would anyone else watch it if I was watching the match?
Does it put you off that it's mainly publicised for its titillation?
No, I think that's kind of funny, but I do also think that anybody that turns it on thinking "Oh, I might wank one off to this" will actually find it's good piece of drama, which it is!
They must be devastated! Chat-up lines have changed since the 19th century.
Go on, gimmie one.
Well, that one in it where a bloke said, "Have a heart. I'm as hard as a broom handle and aching to spend!" and it worked!
Well, you kind of get the point! Well, if somebody was to say that, what they're really saying is "Please god, do me a favour", rather than saying, you know, "The stars have fallen from the sky into your eyes" or some other cheesy line. Just say "I'm hard man! Bring it on!" You might get more luck.
If someone said that to you, you wouldn't.
I'd think about it for a second.
Fair enough! There's another one. Even in one of the more romantic scenes, someone says to you "Oh, you smell like a mermaid!" Now that's a double-edged sword!
Well, if you got the back story of it, she works in a fish shop. I work in a fish restaurant. She peels my glove off my hand and says "Oh, you smell…" and I realise she's smelling my hand and say "… like a herring!", and she says "No, like a mermaid", so it's romantic!
It's not a line I'd like to try. Well, let's have a look at another clip. This is you as Tommy Atkins. You spend quite a lot of time dressed as a bloke!
Yeah, she becomes a prostitute. I become a male prostitute. Nobody busts me for being a girl 'cause I shove a hanky down my trousers and I flatten my chest, and so she becomes a male prostitute. It's a sov for a dubbing, two for a suck, but I won't be buggered!
What a great catchphrase! So lets see Rachael as Tommy Akins.
[A clip of Nan at Diana's house plays. It is the scene in which Diana tugs the handkerchief out of Nan's trousers and sniffs it.]
Well, I heard you had a bit of a problem in that scene.
We did. Well, I was kind of keen to do everything, so I did my own props. And we were doing an over-Anna's-shoulder shot to my face, and she pulled the handkerchief out from the fly hole in my trousers. Only I'd completely forgotten to set the handkerchief in my fly hole of my trousers, so the director had the camera aimed close up on my face. And I was doing the scene, and Anna kind of rubs down my front and puts her fingers into the fly hole of my trousers and starts tugging, and whatever it is won't come loose. Meanwhile my eyes were watering like [does an impression of a wide-eyed face and squeaks a bit], and the director's going, "What the hell's she doing? Bloody hell, cut!" and he says, "What's wrong? What's wrong?" and I say "My pubes! She's been pulling my pubes!" I'd forgotten to put the handkerchief in there, and I couldn't wear any knickers 'cause I had to take my trousers off in a minute, and she'd been tugging really hard and I was too embarrassed to say anything. Silly girl!
Well, that serves you right for not setting your props! Have you had feedback from, shall we call them, the lesbian community? As if they all live together in a small village, sitting in pubs with tweed suits on, smoking pipes. Put Tipping the Velvet on will ya? Oh I'm as hard as a broom handle!"
I haven't had feedback off them yet.
Really?!
We're supposed to be going off and doing that gay festival in Seattle, but I don't know… I've got a double theory about it. I think some will love it and some of them will think this is chocolate-box-sized what was a really important book for a lot of people, and it's sort of dramatised in a BBC sort of fashion what was quite gritty and dirty in the book sometimes. So you can't win, because the men will say there's not enough sex, and some people who are passionate about the book say its not as lesbian-orientated and it's geared to a male audience, so you can't really win.
Before you go… for all the people that are watching, who don't know what Tipping the Velvet means, can you give us a brief meaning to the word?
The phrase is, when you watch Ali G, pretty much "munching the carpet", are ya wit me?
So it's the tip of the tongue?
Yeah. It's the most beautiful analogy. There are all these filthy analogies, and there is tipping the velvet. Mmmmm!
It's the velvet thing I can't understand.
Maybe you haven't been tipping the right kind of velvet!
Well, maybe you're right. Nothing like velvet. I've never seen one like velvet! It collects the bits like velvet!
[Picks up a cushion to throw at Frank]
I think we'll leave it there. It's been lovely talking to you, and all the best for the future! Rachael Stirling!
