WHEN Mr Darcy emerged from a lake with his soaking shirt plastered to his body it saw millions of women TV viewers get hot under the collar.
Colin Firth’s scene in the BBC’s adaptation of classic novel Pride And Prejudice almost 30 years ago created one of television’s most memorable moments.
So much so that the shirt which clung to the hunky actor’s taut torso was expected to sell for a whopping £10,000 in a charity auction which started last night.
Although Mr Darcy did not actually flash much flesh, the scene did mark the start of appreciating the male physique on TV dramas — and more and more clothes have come off as the years have passed and attitudes to sex have changed.
Fast forward three decades and we are bombarded by Barry Keoghan dancing starkers in Saltburn, which he recreated on the cover of Vanity Fair this month and Theo James waving his prosthetic private part in The White Lotus.
But the famous Mr Darcy lake scene showed how, even in 1995, TV execs were still nervous about male nudity.
They actually covered up the character in the scene, which Jane Austen envisaged in her 1813 book featuring the central hero naked.
As Colin later recalled: “The funny thing is the whole shirt thing has grown as the rest of it’s been forgotten.
“I was meant to be wearing precisely nothing.
“They had a problem because the writer had written that he [Mr Darcy] takes all of his kit off and jumps in the pond, and we all knew that that was going to be delicate for family viewing.
“So we thought, ‘What do we do? Underpants?’.
“And then one of these experts said, ‘They don’t wear underpants’, so we thought, ‘Well, let’s do something that’s sort of what if they did’, and they looked like my granny’s bloomers.
“It was the BBC and me being a bit prudish I suppose . . . but I probably would have done it.”
There seems to be no such prudishness among TV executives these days.
And it is not just streamers such as Netlfix and Prime Video which are getting more daring when it comes to blokes doing full-frontal nudity.
Only this week, BBC drama boss Lindsay Salt listed the lengthy sex scene in 2020 drama Normal People as being one of TV’s most memorable moments.
Coincidentally, she also mentioned the Mr Darcy lake scene.
She said: “It’s the iconic moments that live with us most.
“Those pivotal, jaw-dropping moments of television that have us crying or laughing, gasping in shock or shrieking at the TV.
“So, what are those moments for me over the years?
“Well, it’s Happy Valley and the shocking moment Tommy Lee Royce set himself on fire.
The closer I’m getting to people seeing me fully nude on screen, it does make me slightly nervous
Paul Mescal
“It’s Pride And Prejudice and Mr Darcy’s impromptu dip in his private lake.
“It’s the moment in episode two of Spooks when Helen Flynn has her head pushed into a deep-fat fryer.
“It’s the beautiful sex scene in Normal People that lasted four minutes and 40 seconds.”
The limits were well and truly pushed by that 2020 drama, which required Paul Mescal to flash far more flesh as Connell than the female lead Daisy Edgar-Jones did as Marianne, despite them both featuring in multiple sex scenes together.
Speaking after filming had completed, but just before the drama aired, Paul said: “On the first Friday of the first week we had a full day of sex scenes.
“It’s fair to say we were both incredibly nervous.
“That Thursday I didn’t sleep.
“I’m not concerned about it because I made a choice that this project is something that I’m proud of.
“The closer I’m getting to people seeing me fully nude on screen, it does make me slightly nervous.”
Sex is a huge part of life, a form of communication
Paul Mescal
But Paul said that, in a world where young people can easily access toxic, hardcore pornography at the click of a mouse, it is important to show men and women having healthy, safe sex.
He said: “It’s massively important.
“If we remove it, to make younger people comfortable, we’d be doing everybody a disservice.
“Sex is a huge part of life, a form of communication.”
For decades women had frequently been on our screens in various stages of undress, while the men were invariably covered up.
And when a drama-maker dared to show too much, there was outrage.
Things slowly started to changed in the Nineties and Noughties with daring shows including Sex And The City, Queer As Folk and teen-drama Skins proving that civilisation would not crumble if men suddenly showed as many body parts as the women had.
A turning point came with the arrival of shows such as Game Of Thrones on Sky Atlantic in 2011, which seemed to show men and women stark naked in equal measures.
The most famous was Kit Harington’s bum-baring sex scene which he filmed in 2016.
After it aired, he recalled: “If you’re getting your bum out in front of 60million people, you do your homework — lots of squats.”
And Kit did not seem at all phased by stripping off, adding: “I’ll get my bum out for anyone.”
Sky continued to push the limits with shows such as The White Lotus, which last year showed Theo James strip naked to reveal rather large prosthetic private parts.
It is perhaps no coincidence that, around the same time that the likes of Sky and the streamers started challenging the conventional TV channels, that Aidan Turner started appearing topless in 2015 BBC One Sunday night drama Poldark.
Would it have been handled the same way in the Press if it was a young woman?
Aidan Turner
Once upon a time, male nudity was considered beyond the pale, while naked women could be openly objectified.
Now Poldark showed the tables were truly turning.
Aidan said: “Was it safer to make a big deal of this because it was a young man?
“Would it have been handled the same way in the Press if it was a young woman?
“I don’t know. Possibly not.”
But he said it was probably a fair turning of the tables because women’s objectification of men is different.
Aidan explained: “I’m a man. It’s just not the same.
“It’s a completely different world for me. I walk down the street, I don’t ever feel scared.
When I found out I was doing it I couldn’t speak for ten seconds
Leo Woodhall
“There are women who feel scared every day. It’s a very different world for me.
“If I go to a BFI screening and 20 women come up and they want selfies, it can sometimes get a little hands-on.
“But I never feel like my safety is in question. I never feel like I need to get out of there.
“I don’t get scared, so it’s different.
“Whereas a woman might if it happened with 20 guys crowding around her.”
On the BBC in 2017 came Taboo, featuring Tom Hardy stripping off, and a year later there was thriller Bodyguard which, despite also airing on a Sunday evening, had leading man Richard Madden nonchalantly parading around naked.
These days it is difficult to watch a drama without seeing substantial male nudity, from Rege-Jean Page and Jonathan Bailey in Bridgerton to Leo Woodhall in The White Lotus.
Leo displayed a casual attitude to appearing nude when he discussed the most explicit sex scene he had to perform in the drama, one which also involved him fully exposing himself.
He said: “When I found out I was doing it I couldn’t speak for ten seconds.
“Then I thought, ‘That’s such a brilliant moment’.
“They are weird to do but then you’re like, ‘Let’s just embrace it’.”
