Ex-Corrie star’s sexy confession – I brought home French maid’s outfit to try out with my hubby
Angela Griffin reveals all about her new saucy TV role as sex toy saleswoman
AFTER weeks spent playing with vintage vibrators for her latest TV role, Angela Griffin is an expert – and she reckons women these days are missing out.
The former Corrie star, who plays a sex toy saleswoman in the new series set in the Eighties, said: “I think there’s a market to bring them back.
“Some of the toys these days are a little bit angry, a little bit ‘Arrrrggghhh!’.
“Whereas the Eighties ones are quite beautiful and elegant.”
ITV prop makers specially recreated the decade’s love toys for six-parter Brief Encounters, about four unlikely friends who come together to sell saucy items at house parties in Sheffield.
It is loosely based on Good Vibrations, a book by Ann Summers boss Jacqueline Gold about her early days at the company.
As well as coping with retro toys, Angela, 39, had to dress up in the firm’s classic French maid outfit in the very first episode.
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She immediately took selfies of herself in the costume and sent them to husband Jason Milligan, an ITV continuity announcer.
The couple have been together for nearly 15 years and wed in 2006.
The mum-of-two told The Sun: “I did send him photographs of me in the French maid’s costume when I was filming it and he said, ‘Bring it home,’ so I did.
“I did exactly as my husband told me.”
Angela had already spent hours getting into shape in order to look as good as possible in the saucy outfit after reading about the costume plans in the script.
She revealed: “After reading that scene I started going to the gym.
“It was four months before we started filming and I was like, ‘I can’t believe I’ve got to be in a French maid’s outfit.’
“It really stuck in my head.
“It’s a brilliant motivation, I can assure you! I’ve realised I can only go to the gym and eat well when I know I have to show my wares to the world.”
Angela’s co-stars in the new series are Peaky Blinders actress Sophie Rundle, Downton Abbey’s Dame Penelope Wilton and My Mad Fat Diary’s Sharon Rooney.
Angela and Sophie play young married mums Nita and Steph who need extra money, while Penelope plays unhappily married Pauline and Sharon stars as lovelorn hairdresser Dawn.
Spending their time on set surrounded by vintage sex toys and old Ann Summers catalogues, Angela admitted the shoot was an education for all four women.
She said: “We did spend a lot of time poring through the boxes and the magazines!
“The Eighties doesn’t feel like that long ago but it really is — our attitudes have changed so much towards sex.
“There was still a bit of filth in there, still a little bit of, ‘Oooh they’re interesting!’
“The models look so different — some of the outfits are still designed to thrill but the women are very different.
“These days it’s all fake tan, big boobs and no pubic hair!”
Nowadays Ann Summers shops can be found on every high street.
But back in the Eighties it was almost impossible to buy a “marital aid” without resorting to mail order or risking embarrassment in a sex shop on the wrong side of town — until Ann Summers parties took off.
Angela, who played hairdresser Fiona Middleton on Coronation Street in the Nineties, is herself a big fan of Ann Summers parties.
She fell for them after going to one with pals Lisa Faulkner, the former Holby City actress, and Emmerdale’s Nicola Stephenson.
She said: “It was years ago on a hen do with Nicola and Lisa. It was a laugh and I bought loads.
“It felt very female-friendly and it doesn’t always feel very female-friendly these days.
“It’s brilliant that the world has opened up and that women can enjoy sex and have sex and are allowed to have sex and it’s not looked down on as something dirty.
“I love that.”
But Angela also fears the rise of internet porn is seeing women objectified more than ever before.
She added: “There is a lot of porn, a lot of aggressive stuff and a lot of stuff that is not necessarily from the female point of view.
“It’s still an industry that’s being run predominantly by men.
“It’s just not equal.
“I think you can find whatever extreme you want within a safe place but you’ve got to bloody look for it yet it will only take you three seconds if you’re a man.”
And Angela is convinced there is a huge market for a female-friendly sex industry, as proved by the success of the Fifty Shades Of Grey books and film.
She said: “It’s an all right book.
“It’s not ground-breaking prose but it went mental because women didn’t have that, and as soon as they got a sniff of it they went out and bought it in their droves.
“Hopefully this will reveal where it started, where it comes from and may open a few people’s eyes.”
Angela, who is mum to daughters Tallulah, 11, and nine-year-old Melissa, added: “On a broader level it’s about women getting choices — making a situation where they can make their own choices.
“They can be financially independent and they can be sexually awakened, and I think that is the overall message that comes out of the show.
“There is just nothing like it on TV at the moment.
“If I saw it advertised I’d want to watch it — it’s about girls.
“There are no dead bodies!”
Brief Encounters begins on ITV on Monday, July 4, at 9pm.