'Versailles' Sex Scenes Defended By Co-Creator David Wolstencroft

There’s no getting around it, there was a whole lot of sex in the first episode of ‘Versailles’ last night (1 June), wasn’t there?

True, there was plenty of drama, suspense and intrigue going on, with great performances from the likes of George Blagden, Alexander Vlahos and Elisa Lasowski.

But let’s face it - the sex was all anyone on Twitter was talking about.

In the space of 17 minutes, in fact, viewers were confronted with four separate “scenes of a mature nature”, which no doubt made for uncomfortable viewing for anyone who tuned in with their parents expecting a ‘Downton Abbey’-esque historical drama (with a few more wigs thrown in for good measure).

‘Versailles’ co-creator David Wolstencroft has now addressed the public’s reaction to the sex scenes telling us, basically, that we all need to just grow up a bit.

He told The Telegraph: “Sex is a fact of life. We’re all here because of sex. If you look at the honesty of what the show is doing, the depiction of it as a function of power, the context of it, rather than avoiding the subject entirely, which would be laughable.

"It’s actually a very carefully organised, much thought about, calculated way by Simon and I of exploring power.”

David continued: “If you want to get titillated and count the nipples, go ahead, but that’s not the way that French audiences have consumed it, Canadian audiences have consumed it, and the way I think English audiences will consume it, I think they’ll look about it and say 'What was all that fuss?'”

Strong words for all the nipple-counters out there.

‘Versailles’ continues next Wednesday (8 June) at 9pm on BBC Two.