Naked Ambition of Major Stars

It’s awards season and the red-carpet appears to have turned into a Fifties Soho peepshow.

Its access-all-areas as the owners’ plastered-on smiles declare unconvincingly to a watching world that they just adore the outfit, darling; he’s such a fabulous designer and I’m so lucky to be made a fool of by such a genius. Oh, and if any director is watching, let this particularly unusual patch of flesh I’m showing reassure him that I am totally up for nude scenes.

Of course, down among the newcomers, wannabes and aspiring lingerie models you expect a few legs to flash and rogue breasts to make daring breaks for freedom. But nakedness has become the new normal even for those old and established enough to keep a reasonable acreage of skin under cover.

Flanks and bottoms wave to the breeze. Underboob and sideboob wobble in jellified abandon. Crotches are close-up: as Patsy says in AbFab, one false move and the world’s your gynaecologist.