Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1566 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-10-28
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 185 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Screenwriter Andrew Davies describes Tipping the Velvet, his adaptation of Sarah Waters's acclaimed novel of lesbian love, betrayal and redemption in Victorian England, as "Pride and Prejudice with dirty bits". This three-part BBC production chronicles with relish the story of Nan Astley (Rachael Stirling, the ravishing image of her mother, Diana Rigg), barely 18, and certain that life holds more for her than her oyster girl's existence. "You'll meet someone who'll have your head spinning and your legs turning to jelly", her sister promises. That someone surprisingly turns out to be "gay and bold" Kitty Butler (Keeley Hawes), a music-hall entertainer with whom Nan falls instantly, and swooningly, in love. Nan follows her to London, where, as a double act, they become the toast of London, until Kitty's "marriage of convenience" breaks up the act and Nan's heart. The outcast Nan, decked out in Victor/Victoria duds, becomes a streetwalker, and then "tart" to the aptly named Diana Leatherby (Anna Chancellor). This affair, too, comes to "a bad end" as a destitute Nan is deposited back on the streets, where she insinuates herself into the lives of Florence (Jodhi May), a social worker, and her socialist brother.

Is Nan "too spoiled and stained for love"? Will she risk her blossoming relationship with Florence when Kitty inevitably returns to rekindle their affair? Nan's couplings, while tastefully done, do carry what Waters calls "a queer erotic charge". They are graphic by BBC standards. But the sterling writing and performances will captivate even the most sensitive viewers, making this groundbreaking mini-series, to quote one character, "a delightful evening... a rare treat". --Donald Liebenson

DVD Description
Contains the following episodes:

• Episode 1: The glamorous world of the 19th century music hall provides the backdrop for Nan’s first love affair with Kitty Butler, a popular male impersonator. When Kitty is offered the chance to perform in London, a delighted Nan accompanies her as a dresser, but true success doesn’t happen until Nan becomes part of the act.
  
• Episode 2: Alone and devastated by her betrayal, Nan cannot return to her family in Whitstable so takes to the streets to survive. In her guise as a male impersonator, she finds a niche in the Victorian sexual underworld and is also drawn into the web of a rich Sapphic, society widow who offers sex, excitement and luxury but at a perilous price.
  
• Episode 3: Diana throws out Nan and Blake and Blake disappears with all of the money, leaving a totally destitute Nan. The only person she can think to turn to ends up unwelcoming to her. So begins a very different phase for Nan, which leads ultimately to her making the most important decision of her life.

Special Features

• Interview with Andrew Davies and Sarah Waters
  
• Stills Gallery

DVD Technical Information:

• 16: 9 Anamorphic
  
• PAL
  
• Region Code: 2
  
• Running Time: 178 minutes approx.

Customer Reviews

Original, engaging and beautiful - and lots of fun!
An absolute delight, with excellent acting and great production values. Rachael Stirling is utterly endearing and hard to forget, Keeley Hawes is simply delicious, and the rest of the cast are equally good. As a love story, Tipping the Velvet works perfectly - the romantic buildup and sex scenes are gorgeous and entirely believable, especially for a gay or lesbian audience. But there is so much more to be enjoyed - the vivid evocation of provincial music halls and oyster parlours, Kentish seaside and family life, and the world of Victorian London, with all its quirky contradictions and seamy undercurrents. There is also a wonderful depth of characterisation, and an avoidance of cliche, which is perhaps best illustrated by Sarah Waters' own subtle gender politics: the male characters are benign, often kind, and never vilified, while the real wielders of emotional power and pain are the lesbian characters themselves. There's a great deal here to discuss, if you ever happen to tire of gazing happily at the screen. Buy it, you won't regret it!

Accomplished and daring adaptation
I was sceptical when this first aired - the subject matter seemed too risque for mainstream TV to do anything other than skirt nervously around, the marketing too slanted towards a voyeuristic male audience. Two years on, I rented the DVD and was more than pleasantly surprised.

Andrews Davies' screenplay is excellent, sticking close to the novel while judiciously trimming the plot down to essentials. Together with some clever direction and editing, it intelligently explores the novel's interlinked themes of performance, display, gender and identity. The sound and visual effects of the music hall pursue Nan throughout her journey from innocence to experience. Drumrolls, cymbal clashes and fade-to-black 'spotlights' accompany pivotal moments in her life. A recurring motif of dressing in front of mirrors subtly underlines how Nan variously expresses, hides and reinvents herself - sexually, physically, emotionally - as she moves from oyster girl to male impersonator to kept woman to socialist campaigner. At times, the series comes into its own beautifully, as with the intercut sequence of Nan and Kitty rehearsing their act together.

Surprisingly, too, none of the novel's bawdiness is lost - Nan's story is here in all its joys, pains and dildos - but again the production proves itself worthy. The sex scenes are explicit - but rather than just providing titillation, they always further the themes and character development.

The acting is a little uneven - certain cast members play it straighter than others (excuse the pun) - but the leads all do well with the material. Florence is less forthright and assured than in the book, but Jodhi May gives her grace and sweetness enough to make us root for her at the end. The only problem - to this reviewer - lies in Kitty, Nan's first love. The script misses a trick when it skips the novel's pivotal moment for her character (her crisis after a performance is interrupted by hecklers accusing the pair of being lesbians). Where she could have presented yet another facet of the theme of appearance and identity - her rushed, concealing marriage prompted by paranoia that exposure as a lesbian will blight her career and cost her the public adulation she craves - instead she emerges simply as a cliched, confused bisexual, unable to choose between Nan and Walter until it is too late.

On the whole, though, this is an brave and admirable adaptation that captures the essence of the novel and is highly entertaining in its own right.

Queering the Period Drama
I didn't get the chance to watch "Tipping the Velvet" when it was first screened by the BBC in 2002, and have only recently had the pleasure. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't such sumptuous sexual and gendered liberalness - thankfully, the BBC took the book (beautifully written and themed to the teeth) and gave it the scriptural freedom it needed to express itself properly.

The product is "Tipping the Velvet", an unashamed exploration of gender and lesbian sexuality in Victorian England that deliberately questions manhood and womanhood, and the space between the two. We follow the protagonist, Nan Astley, on a bildungsroman from innocence to experience, through love and betrayal, from cross-dressing entertainment halls to dildo-wielding dominatrixes to proto-socialist paradise. If it sounds at all crude, it isn't - "Tipping the Velvet" *is* explicit, but the focus of the adaptation is not Nan's sexual initiations but her emotional trials. Her sexual explorations are part and parcel of this, but at no point does it degenerate into gratuitous displays. On the contrary, the sex scenes are accomplished with a commendable grace and poise, removing the usual aura of sordidness that surrounds the portrayal of same-sex relationships. The themed imagery comes thick and fact - the title itself being a euphemism - and begs us to think about the implications of acting, queerness, femininity, moral norms and love.

Furthermore, the overall standard of production itself is high, while Andrew Davies' script is spot-on for tone and characterisation. A few anachronistic slips can be forgiven I think. :-)

Overall, excellent thought-provoking entertainment for people of all sexual persuasions.