A bit of saucy controversy never does a TV Show any harm – and the Beeb's new period drama Versailles has been, eh, getting it in bucketloads. Quel scandale!
The Daily Mail (who else!) described the show as nothing more than 'primetime porn' while a Conservative MP accused the BBC of 'dumbing down' by showing it. Meanwhile family rights campaigners have branded it 'porn dressed up in a cravat and tights'. Cue ratings success, eh?
This ten-part Franco-Canadian drama is set in 17th Century France and filmed in English, so subtitle-phobes can enjoy this Louis XIV romp that focuses on his decadent plans to transform his father’s hunting lodge at Versailles into the most magnificent château in Europe.
Former Merlin star Alexander Vlahos has one of the key roles in the series, as he plays the French king's brother, Philippe I, Duke of Orléans. And he is loving the infamy of it all.
"It's all good press," he told Digital Spy. "I went and had coffee with David Wolstencroft, one of the producers, and I said to him, 'Be honest with me . . . did you plan this? Because if you did, it's a master stroke. If you didn't, then we should be claiming we did!'"
But he's not that happy with the way that the show's sex scenes are taking away from the more serious matter of making a drama that tells it like it was during the pomp of Louis XIV.
"I found it disrespectful at the time, because it was focusing on one tiny aspect of a show that offers so much more," he said. "It's one flavour of our show that has so many more positive, brilliant flavours.
"Is it raunchy? I don't think it is. I think it's actually quite tame. I think it's raunchy for the BBC, but then I think London Spy - brilliant as it was - was a lot more graphic than what we're showing.
"We never sat down and said, 'Let's try and make the most controversial show ever' - we just tried to make Versailles and be as true to that time and that period as we possibly can. It just so happens that life at that time, in that court, was bloody crazy!"
