Hullraisers star Taj Atwal on the bedroom scenes in the new sitcom

Line Of Duty actor Taj Atwal may play a woman who enjoys a lively sex life in Lucy Beaumont’s new sitcom Hullraisers  – but there was nothing erotic about shooting the show’s many sex scenes.

‘ Even though it looks sexy it’s never sexy at seven o'clock in the morning when I’ve just eaten an egg sandwich,’ she confessed about the bedroom action.

And the actress, who played Tatleen in the BBC’s hit police procedural, also praised the intimacy co-ordinator employed to make sure such shoots went smoothly.

‘We had a great intimacy co-ordinator and we talked about it very openly,’ she says. ‘We did it tactfully and it was always just the co-ordinator, me, the male actor and the director at first having a conversation. It's always a negotiation.

‘It’s about asking the right questions: "Do you feel comfortable taking this clothing off? Shall I take this off? Are you okay with me touching you there?’ I would lead it and say, ‘I don't mind you touching this part.’ We’d always start quite conservative and then build up until we felt more comfortable.

‘I think the [male] actors were more nervous than me because they were only coming in for a day or two, and it's just as nerve-racking for men as it is for women; they have just the same kind of insecurities.

‘ It's not easy to come into a show with a close-knit cast and do an intimate scene at 7 o’clock in the morning but all of the actors messaged me afterwards to say, "Thank you so much to the cast and crew for being so welcoming."’

And Atwal – who plays Rana in the new Channel 4 show – said the new, post-#MeToo practice of employing intimacy co-ordinators on TV and film shoots are a godsend.

‘It’s important because they have a language and a dialogue and they feel like the safe person in the room to go to. All the intimacy coordinators that I've worked for, they're only in that room to protect you both.

‘You can always go off and speak to them at any time and they just have your back. It's really nice to have that presence in the room. I can't imagine how actors did it in the past without that.’

Stand-up Beaumont wrote the script with Anne-Marie O’Connor, whose credits include Trollied, and Caroline Moran, of Raised By Wolves.

• Hullraisers starts on Tuesday April 12 at 9.45pm on Channel 4.

Published: 5 Apr 2022