Whether she’s racing through time and space in a little blue box or arranging a bombshell interview with Prince Andrew, I have always made a point of worshipping at the altar of any character that Billie Piper plays.

Yet, somehow, I missed one of her most iconic performances the first time around. So, when I saw that Secret Diary Of A Call Girl (some 17 years after its debut) had made Netflix’s top 10 list, I decided it was finally time to give it a whirl.

Instantly, I found myself transported back to an era of circle belts, slouchy boots, mini kilts, cigarettes in public places and iPod Shuffles. And Piper’s Hannah Baxter – a high-class sex worker who frequently breaks the fourth wall to explain, ever so frankly, why she loves her job  – feels every bit as familiar, too, despite the fact I’ve never met her on screen before. Oozing charisma in spite of her resounding hot mess status, she is very much an early blueprint for Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag.

Now, there’s no denying that this is something of an alchemical concoction. We have nostalgia, for starters, and a healthy dollop of London at its finest: all expensive restaurants and hotels, with sweeping shots of the Thames and red buses pootling their way along it. On top of that, we have a woman boldly taking ownership of her innermost thoughts and feelings, and her narrative (almost a confessional) makes for compelling viewing. Right from the very first episode, she talks straight into the camera and lets me know, in no uncertain terms, that she’s a woman who loves the work she does. With lines like “I’m very high-class” and “I charge by the hour, and I charge a lot”, Hannah is a fully realised character taking charge of the work she does; she’s not a flat object of desire.

There’s no denying that when it first aired (and possibly still now), parts of this show were intended to have shock value. Hannah is out to disarm me in that same sly, teasing way in which teenagers goad their parents into reacting to something they’ve said. Her tone is impossibly languorous, almost bored, as she happily talks about her work and shows us how she keeps her personal life from colliding with her professional one: two wardrobes, two bedrooms and “never the twain shall meet”. One can’t help but wonder about the square footage on that particular London apartment.

All of this upfrontery – along with the sweary agent ordering Hannah to “shit and shave” before her next client arrives and the wilder requests of some of her stranger clients – is completely at odds with the camera work. Everything is shot through a hazy golden glow, not unlike the effect your selfies are given when you forget to wipe away the smudge from your iPhone’s front camera. It feels purposefully removed from reality.

Considering how fantastical The Secret Diary Of A Call Girl’s portrayal of sex work is (Hannah, at one point, blithely reveals she’s just spent three weeks on a tropical island with one of her millionaire clients), this aesthetic feels fitting. Because surely this life – in which all of Hannah’s clients are attractive and wealthy and she gleefully describes her sexual encounters as “adventures” – is a form of unreality? It’s pure escapist telly, with seemingly one sole aim: to whisk viewers up and away into a world that’s (likely) completely at odds with their own.

Hannah presents her line of work as being nothing short of a brilliant career choice: she’s a beacon of sexual liberation and empowerment. She isn’t a moral lesson, a plot device or a foil for another character – she is the plot and the only character worth talking about. She is also based on a very real person: research scientist Dr Brooke Magnanti worked as a London call girl for 14 months in 2003–2004 while completing her PhD thesis at Sheffield University, earning £300 an hour and giving her more than enough inspiration to write an anonymous sex blog under the pseudonym Belle du Jour.

“I miss the moment when you walk into a hotel, and that feeling of ‘I’m about to do a job and I’m about to do it well’,” Magnanti said in an interview on The Book Show back in 2009. And to any critics, she added: “My experiences of the business – let’s not mince words here – were very lucky. And I managed to get out of it before it became the bulk of my lifestyle. And I look at where I am now and I’m very happy with it.”

Her words are of importance when it comes to contextualising the series, even all these years later. Because, no matter how fun and fluffy the show might be (think the early days of Sex And The City, particularly the Samantha-centric episodes), there’s no denying that its perspective of its subject matter is incredibly narrow. Autonomous, glamorous and able to take as much enjoyment from her work as she does the money she earns from it, Hannah has a very specific experience of sex work. But, is it realistic? It depends entirely on the context. StreetlightUK, a charity dedicated to providing specialist support to women involved in sex work who are at risk of being exploited or trafficked, reports that some 105,000 people are estimated to be sex workers in the UK today – the vast majority of which are women. When asked if they would like to leave their work, nine out of 10 of these women said yes. The charity underlines: “There is a strong correlation with homelessness, sexual abuse, violence at home, runaways, drug use, time in care, poverty, debt and poor education […] as well as drawing individuals into the sex industry, these social factors can also be significant barriers to exiting,” they explain. “Women often feel powerless, isolated, excluded, vulnerable, marginalised and trapped.”

That being said, this is a charity whose sole aim is to help women escape from sex work. This differs from the views expressed by SWARM, a collective of sex workers “who believe in self-determination, solidarity and co-operation”, advocate for the full decriminalisation of sex work and refuse to let others label them as victims. Streetlight’s mission is unlikely to speak to the character of Hannah or the real-life women who have similar experiences to her in the industry. Their view, much like Magnanti’s, is fixated on a specific narrative. So what to make of Secret Diary Of A Call Girl, then?

Personally, I’m not shocked by a woman who loves and enjoys sex or who swerves convention without ever worrying what people might think about it; good for her, quite frankly (sex positivity and feminism are not mutually exclusive concepts). It feels oddly cathartic, too, that Hannah goes into every sexual encounter holding all the cards and knowing exactly what she’s going to get out of the experience. In the show, Hannah is afforded a level of acceptance, safety and security that some would describe as unrealistic (or at least unlikely), but maybe that’s the point. We have more than enough miserable portrayals of sex workers on our screens: often tragic characters with little to no character development who wouldn’t necessarily fit into this series, especially as it boasts such slimline episodes.

Still, it feels like showrunners missed an opportunity to at least compare the highs of Hannah’s life to the lows experienced by other sex workers who do not have the same experiences as her. To flip this world – where women always seem to have the upper hand – on its head. To interrogate and explore the themes of solitude and disassociation so present in the original books. Because, as Magnanti writes in Playing The Game, her story is “not all about the sex – never has been – it’s about the heart of darkness”.

Then again, perhaps that’s exactly why the camera shrouds Hannah in an eternal cloud of golden fog. Perhaps it’s a subtle reminder that she isn’t necessarily a reliable narrator, that all of the two-dimensional characters that surround her are likely amalgamations of real individuals, and that all of their happy endings are being presented through the eyes of one woman, her experiences and her views.

Images: Getty