'Gentleman Jack' fans giggle as petticoats get in the way of passion - but Suranne Jones says lack of nudity was deliberate

Steamy period drama Gentleman Jack featured had viewers in hysterics over an awkward sex scene - but Suranne Jones has explained the layers of petticoats got in the way of passion for a reason.

The BBC drama stars Suranne Jones as Anne Lister, a wealthy Yorkshire landowner whose extensive diaries about her lesbian affairs in the 19th Century have been adapted by Happy Valley writer Sally Wainwright.

Read more: Gentleman Jack viewers shocked by steamy sex scene

Her sex scenes are with Peaky Blinders star Sophie Rundle, who plays Ann Walker, the woman Lister recognised as her wife, but Jones says there was a conscious choice to avoid gratuitous nudity and stop the series becoming known for the wrong reasons.

What started out as a hot and steamy series had viewers dissolving into giggles on Sunday evening as the pair struggled to navigate the huge skirts between them.

As the two women fought through swathes of material, one viewer tweeted: “A quickie in 1832 took 6 hours by the time they took all that kit off.”

Others agreed that the dress of the day looked like a total nightmare.

However, Jones previously pointed out that there was no real nudity in the show so as not to cheapen the story of Lister’s life.

She told the Radio Times: “Anne was so many things, she just happened to be a lesbian. We didn’t feel that any of the love scenes needed to be gratuitous, because then it becomes a whole different show.

“I think it would have taken away from everything else that she was and how ground-breaking she was in her business life if we’d have gone any more graphic with the sex scenes.”

Even so, Jones carefully prepped to keep her physique true to the time period - including spending months growing her armpit hair, which never managed a starring role.

She said: “I was literally walking in her footsteps. Anne played with gender her whole life and was gender non-conforming in so many different ways.

“I wore men’s shoes, men’s gaiters, men’s underwear – and of course the top hat, which is very masculine.

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“I couldn’t do any nails and I had to grow my armpit hair. I did go quite method with that, actually.

“And then the bugger of it – there’s no shot of my armpit hair! You can see half a second of it – and so I’m like, ‘Right, I’m not doing that again.’”