TV: Hayley Goes Naked
Despite its click-bait title, this is actually a half-decent attempt to look at some of the issues involving public nudity.
Hayley comes to a conclusion that we already know: not all naturists are elderly eccentrics.
TV REVIEW
HAYLEY GOES NAKED
BBC 2021
For the uninitiated (which I must admit included myself), Hayley Pearce is the Swansea-born 31-year-old presenter of a series of BBC Wales documentaries which “aim to explore the issues that affect her generation today.” As previous topics have including mental health, gender identity and mobile phone addiction, it’s therefore encouraging that in episode 2 of the third series - broadcast in August and currently available on BBC iPlayer - she chose to look at attitudes to nakedness.
The advance publicity told us that “one of Hayley’s biggest fears is the thought of being naked in public. It gives her mega-anxiety.”
It’s perhaps a little disingenuous. In the wake of “shooting to fame” as the break-out star of the fly-on-the-wall workplace documentary The Call Centre in 2013, the well-endowed former tea lady has done a lingerie shoot for the late-and-not-very-lamented lads’ mag Zoo, and regularly posts scantily-clad photos of herself on her social media outlets. With 31,000 followers on Twitter and another 17,000 on Instagram, it’s probably safe to say that not many of them are after her advice as to what makes a good brew. As she also spends a large part of the ‘clothed’ section of this show strutting her stuff in high heels, pelmet skirts and low-cut tops, she also doesn’t come across as the shy and retiring kind.
With two previous series under her belt, she’s obviously doing something right, at least as far as those on the other side of the Severn Bridge are concerned. But Hayley is not everybody’s cup of tea. On the occasions when she listens to her interviewees, tones down the OTT ‘lass from the Valleys’ shtick, and stops trying too hard to be a larger-than-life ‘personality,’ she shows that she perhaps has the potential to become a half-decent TV presenter who might make it in the mainstream one day. But for the most part she unfortunately comes across as one of those gobby chavs we have all seen on hen nights in overseas holiday hotspots wearing ‘You can take the girl out of Wales but you can’t take Wales out of the girl’ T-shirts, loudly and very annoyingly acc-en-tu-ating every syllable, and brandishing over-sized inflatable leeks. Max Boyce has a lot to answer for.
In fairness however, despite its click-bait title, accompanying promotional image and constant teasing assurances from Hayley that she is definitely not going to flash her boobs - variously referred to by her as ‘nips,’ ‘baps’ and ‘the boys’ - this is actually a half-decent attempt to look at some of the issues involving public nudity, including body acceptance and diversity, self-consciousness, social media image content, and the effect that posing on such sites might have on future career choices.
In a 30-minute slot, it’s a big subject to cover, and along the way she talks to OnlyFans stars, a TV agent, a copyright expert and naked charity calendar models about why they do what they do, how they feel about it, and how and whether they are judged. Arguably the most revealing interview (in both senses of the word) is with plus-sized black model and body-positivity activist Nyome Nicholas-Williams, whose part-naked photographs, their initial censorship, and the resulting backlash against Instagram, hit the headlines last year.
Audience
Inevitably, naturism per se only takes up a relatively small part of the show, when Hayley visits British Naturism’s Sunfolk club in St Albans to meet naked yoga instructor Georgia Williams and find out more about ‘people who like getting their kit off.’
As naturists, we probably don’t really learn anything we didn’t already know, but Georgia’s eloquence on the subject, and Hayley’s nodding acceptance of some of the points being made - that naturism can be liberating, a way of overcoming self-consciousness, and a great social leveller - will hopefully hit home with some of the audience. Unless they are only tuning in to get an eyeful of Hayley’s assets.
As mentioned, the pre-show blurb asks several rhetorical questions in a bid to drum up viewing figures. Can Hayley get to the bottom of her fear of being naked in public? Will she manage to overcome her anxiety about being nude in front of others? And can she pluck up the courage to tackle her biggest fear of all: getting stark naked… on camera?
The answer is yes, of course, albeit coyly. She initially attends the naked yoga class wearing a skimpy bikini and looking decidedly out of place. And keeps her clothes firmly on whilst interviewing a naked Georgia. But in the end, relaxed and made to feel welcome by the good folk from Sunfolk, she ditches the swimming costume (in a rear-view shot) and joins some of the other guests for a skinny dip in the indoor pool. She also ‘reluctantly’ pitches in with the calendar girls for their photo session at a village hall tea party, hiding her baps, as is the fashion for this type of shoot, behind a couple of strategically-placed baps of the bread variety.
The show (and indeed the series) is perhaps slightly hidebound by its remit: to take a serious subject and treat it in popular fashion. You could describe it as semi-tabloid TV, but it’s not patronising, and whilst it never sets out to be a serious sociological study of nudity, it certainly doesn’t poke fun at naturism either. Hayley comes to a conclusion that we already know: not all naturists are elderly eccentrics, there is no such thing as ‘the perfect body’ and if you are happy to show yours in like-minded company, what’s the problem?
Regarding the actual nudity content in the programme, despite the statutory ‘warning’ at the start, it’s all rather discreet and low-key: a few bare bottoms, Swansea’s finest covering herself with her hands as she runs out of the pool, a brief full-frontal of one of Sunfolk’s male guests, and some ‘nips’ on display from the other swimmers and the participants of the yoga class. Any former Zoo subscribers hoping to catch a glimpse of Hayley’s puppies will be disappointed. They will have more luck watching the first episode in the series, in which she investigates the growth in the pedigree dog breeding industry…
Paul Rouse
VERDICT ***
