French connection for Freya

You might imagine actress Freya Mavor shouldn't have far to travel to get to the glittering world premiere of her very first feature film.

Along the road from the family home in Canonmills, a quick sashay up the red carpet and straight through the doors of the cinema. Watch the film, go to the inevitable post-screening knees-up, back home for supper in no time at all.

No booking flights, no suitcases to pack, no troublesome journey to worry about.

Of course as it's Freya, expect the unexpected. For as we're coming to assume from the Queen Bee bitch of E4's Skins, starlet Freya Mavor doesn't always follow the most conventional route.

Just look at how she fell into acting, screeching head first, like some kind of human cannonball, one day pottering around doing bits and pieces like school plays and youth theatre shows, next launched onto the nation's television screens, all short skirts and surly attitude as feisty Mini McGuinness in the sex, drugs and booze fuelled "yoof" cult series.

Still just 16 years old and dazzlingly pretty with flowing blonde hair, freckles, angelic looks and a mean line in put-downs, she bypassed the bother of minor roles in Casualty and endless auditions for a starring role as an instant pin-up girl. Her nomination as Best Actress in the TV Choice Awards capped off a phenomenal leap from a few months earlier when she nervously auditioned for a part as an entirely different Skins character, convinced she was probably not what they were looking for.

Barely time to catch her breath before she carved herself a modelling niche and parachuted straight in as the face of wool brand Pringle's 2011 spring and summer campaign. Some plug away for years desperately trying to earn some fashionista points, not so for Freya, who then took the fast lane straight into being named Fashion Icon of the Year by the Scottish fashion industry.

No wonder then that rather than sit around waiting for the next big thing, Freya's already moved on. She's quit the UK altogether and hot-tailed it to live in France.

It means that as the countdown begins to the final day of the Edinburgh International Film Festival in June, when Not Another Happy Ending - the film she's just made with Dr Who's Amy Pond, Karen Gillan, gets its first global screening right here in her home town - Freya will be in Paris. Of course.

Quitting home is one thing, quitting the UK when your fledgling television career is on a high to live in a city where the phenomenon of Skins and Freya Mavor is totally unheard of, perhaps quite another. But as we now know, Freya is not the kind to do things gently or, indeed, by halves.

"It's mainly fulfilling a childhood dream to live in Paris," she shrugs.

"It's that old cliche, that everyone says it is beautiful and romantic, everyone sits around drinking strong coffee, smoking and looks like a struggling artist. In many ways, it's partly for that.

"I have lots of friends who live there. I'd love to get involved with doing some French work - French theatre or cinema.

"It doesn't close any doors for me really," she insists, "because Paris is so close to London. And Edinburgh is further from London than Paris is. Most job opportunities happen in London. It's crazy to think that it'll be a problem."

It's that kind of "go for it" spirit that saw her through her first major audition, when she braved an X Factor style open battle for a role on the hit E4 series, emerging victorious as one of Skins' most striking characters.

She recalls the auditions as a kind of "mass hysteria", up against other actors who had brought along their whole family for support, dressed to the nines - or should that be "undressed" - in the hope of snaring the part of superbitch sex kitten Mini. Freya played it a bit cooler, originally trying for another role only to overtake everyone and steal the part of the show's key female character, the overbearing Mini, whose loud mouth and attitude is largely a front for the vulnerable girl within.

"It was amazing for a first job," nods Freya, still just 19 and whose latest role as an awkward young author in Not Another Happy Ending could hardly be further removed from that of the trashy Mini.

"Mad, but very educational."

Skins was done and dusted when the film role came along, starring beside Gillan, one of the hottest young actresses of the moment, shot in Glasgow by a Scottish film company and directed by John McKay, whose work includes hit television show Life on Mars and Lip Service.

Set around a book publisher and his most successful author, played by Gillan, the story kicks off when she suffers crippling writers' block just as her hard-up publisher Tom (French actor Stanley Weber) desperately needs another bestseller. As he tries to inspire her to write once more by causing chaos in her far too comfortable and happy life - the reason for her sudden block - he falls in love.

Freya, who is also about to star in the BBC's blockbuster summer drama The White Queen, plays one of his less successful authors, desperate to be noticed for her own talents.

"I don't think she even knows Karen's character," explains Freya.

"She's not as successful, she is more awkward and kind of weedy.

"One of the lines of her description was 'pale and wispy'. She is shy and reserved, kind of quiet but on the inside she is screaming for someone to notice her.

"It's completely different to Skins.

"The roles are as diverse as you can get as an actor - it's nice not to be working in shorts and massive heels and crop tops, feeling like a blow-up doll. It's nice to have a slightly more reserved character."

Indeed, while starring as Mini brought her attention, Freya confesses that not all of it was that welcome.

"I was terrified at the start," she recalls.

"I was 16 and my character was being so provocative and extreme. I was terrified about how people would react. It is just a job, but some people believe you are that character.

"I suppose on one hand that's fine because it means you have done a convincing job.

"Then you get people who walk past you and say 'Skins is sh***'. I look at that as just like if I went to a restaurant and didn't like the food, I'd say to the chef, I didn't like the chicken or the lamb was a bit under-cooked, it's a job.

"I'm open to criticism, some like it and some don't, as long as you're happy and I don't let it gnaw away at my soul."

On the other hand comes the unexpected praise, and the moment when she was the last person in the room to imagine she'd be named a Scottish fashion icon.

"I was literally stuffing my face with popcorn as they announced the winner," she giggles, recalling the moment her name was called out at the 2011 Scottish Fashion Awards.

"I had to hobble up on stage wearing shoes I couldn't actually walk in.

"I was walking up there on my toes.

"It was so undeserved. They asked afterwards 'Who's your favourite designer?' and I had no idea.

"I usually get all my clothes from my godmother who's a fashion freak, she goes through charity shops and finds weird busy, designer outlets, picks bits and bobs up there and puts on sales.

"She will find wedding dresses, Chanel suits. I felt so unworthy among so many glam people."

She has the looks and the credentials to cut it in modelling, but it would be an unlikely career move: "Modelling is fantastic if the opportunity arises but not something I'd look at as a career," she insists.

"You're just a coat hanger.

"You get to wear fantastic clothes and meet fantastic people but it's less about you as a person and less about being creative.

"It's not as stimulating intellectually, no research required to do it, it's just about moving in the right way and anyone can do that, it's not necessarily a talent or skill."

So she's focussing on acting.

Having snared a role in the BBC adaptation of Philippa Gregory's story based around the War of the Roses - the lavish trailers for The White Queen are already creating a stir - she's now in Paris focussing on a bit of theatre work, some messing around making short films with friends and just soaking up the atmosphere. She might even consider getting some additional training under her belt - incredibly, she's picking up all these key roles without actually having bothered with the typical three years of study for a drama degree.

She's even too busy for romance - hints a few months ago that she was romantically entangled with One Direction's Niall Horan are, she insists, nonsense. "I've not even met the boy," she scoffs. "At the moment I'm doing so much moving around, even in Paris, it's hard to be in the one place for anything to really happen."

Come the end of June, however, it's likely she'll be back home to savour the moment when her first film is unveiled. Being recognised by fans here, on home territory, will be just part of the thrill.

"It's fantastic to meet people who appreciate your work and know what I have done - I love that recognition. It's not just a dream any more, it's not just an ambition, it's something that's feasible."

 

 

Drama in the blood with playwright father and from feisty theatre critic grandfather

Freya Mavor was in her final year at Mary Erskine's when she was chosen from 8000 hopefuls for the high profile role of Mini in E4's cult series Skins.

Drama, however, was already in her blood - her father James Mavor, 51, below, is an award-winning playwright who heads the MA screenwriting course at Napier University.

Among his most recent work was an adaptation of Ian Rankin's best-selling novel Doors Open which was screened last December on television with Stephen Fry in the lead role.

Her grandfather was Ronald Bingo Mavor, The Scotsman's theatre critic in the early 1960s before he became the director of the Scottish Arts Council.

He was instrumental in encouraging Jim Haynes and Richard Demarco to develop the fledgling Traverse Theatre.

And her great-grandfather, the playwright, Oswald Henry Mavor, helped to set up Glasgow's Citizens Theatre.

Her mother, Judith, 53, used to be an opera singer and is an artist.

The family live in Canonmills.

Freya's brother, Zander, is currently studying at Bristol University

Sex for sale: Edinburgh's links with the oldest profession

IT is often called the oldest profession in the world and, judging by the earnings of vice queen Margaret Paterson, certainly among the most lucrative around.

The 61-year-old and her pimp partner Robert Munro, also 61, are facing jail after being convicted of running a brothel and nationwide escort business from a flat in the West End.

For nine years they provided prostitutes for punters across Scotland, with co-accused Ian Goalen, 59, acting as their driver.

Police who raided their premises in September 2011 found evidence that Paterson had embarked on a £461,604 spending spree at some of the city's most exclusive shops. And they found more than £204,000 in cash at her home.

The evidence is a fascinating insight into a sleazy red light world, alien to most of us, but clearly every day life to others.

Until "Madam Moneybags" arrived on the scene with her Louis Vuitton handbags and designer clothes, Edinburgh's best known brothel keeper was, of course, Dora Noyce, who ran her house of ill repute from Danube Street from the late 1940s until the Seventies.

Her townhouse at number 17 had around 15 girls in permanent residence who would be joined by up to 25 others during busy periods. Business famously boomed, apparently, when the USS John F Kennedy docked at Leith.

The vessel offloaded hundreds of sex-starved sailors into the Capital and many headed straight to Dora's front door. The queue for her girls' services is said to have stretched all the way to Ann Street, much to the irritation of her well-heeled Stockbridge neighbours.

Dora and her girls are said to have earned around £4000 before the ship's captain stepped in to declare the brothel a no-go zone for his men.

Dora, a former callgirl herself, appeared in court on many occasions. And never short of a well-placed quip, she once commented that her busiest time of the year was during the church gathering of the Kirk's General Assembly.

She was charged more than 40 times with living on immoral earnings, usually rolling up in court smartly dressed, a string of expensive pearls looped around her neck. Typically she would pay the fine on the spot - then head straight back to work. Sometimes, however, she'd be sent to jail and her last prison term was in 1972, aged 71, for four months.

Dora is the best known, Madam Margaret the latest, but, of course, there were many before and just as many after who made their living from sins of the flesh....

Brothel keeper who paid hefty price

Running a brothel in a Leith hotel not only cost Paul Naef a month in jail, it set the wheels in motion for his deportation. Naef had originally denied running a brothel at the Commercial Hotel in Sandport Street in November 1928.

However one businessman who stayed at the hotel for six months told his trial how "there was very little legitimate business carried on" and that he only saw "one respectable couple" stay there. Police set up watch to gather evidence of men who looked like foreign seamen entering the hotel. Mr Naef was given 30 days, but a previous £25 fine for running a shebeen, or drinking den, meant he was recommended to be deported to his native Italy.

Trade took deadly turn

Victorian Edinburgh was shocked by the actions of prostitute Jessie King. She probably already had mental health problems made worse from doses of mercury given to treat venereal disease.

Lengthy periods spent in institutions no doubt did not help. She turned to another trade to help pay her bills - taking in unwanted children from single mothers who, she'd claimed, she would arrange to be adopted by new parents. Except in at least two cases the babies were strangled and hidden in her coal cellar. Her partner, Thomas Pearson, turned Crown's evidence and King became the last woman to hang in Edinburgh, on March 11, 1889.

Attempts to reform failed

As far back as 1928 efforts were being made to rethink society's attitude to prostitution. Former police officer Mrs Hamilton More Nisbett was called to the House of Commons to give evidence on street crimes on behalf of the Edinburgh National Solciety for Equal Citizenship, and appealed for what she called "the offensive label" of common prostitute to be abolished, arguing that once attached to a woman, it removed any hope of reformation.

She referred to one 15-year-old girl, "in whom the glimpses of good had been crashed" by being labelled a common prostitute. Another she said had tried to reform but her reputation has gone against her. "When you're down, you're down and there's no use trying to get up," she says the woman told her. "When I've finished my 60 days (sentence) I'm going straight to hell".

Exotic and erotic

Many 18th century prostitutes came from more exotic climes seeking a better life. Most are believed to have escaped slavery and arrived at the Port of Leith on board ships from the Caribbean, only to end up selling their bodies on the street.

According to the 18th century 'Who's Who' of vice girls, Miss Ruthven of Nicholson Street was "black and comely, middle-sized, good teeth, agreeable and very good-natured. She is very engaging, and loves the sport very well; and when she is in the height of her devotion, she will turn up her eyes with the utmost rapture".

The trade that won't go away

The early 20th century saw desperate attempts to clean up Edinburgh's prostitution problem. The chief constable's report for 1913 revealed 38 people were charged with brothel keeping. There were 686 women arrested for prostitution. It might take two to tango, but it was clear who the authorities felt were at fault: "How to deal with these women is indeed a perplexing problem," the report concluded. "Many are incorrigible and to deal leniently with them simply means they will figure more often in the number arrested until the state interferes and makes it by law possible to send these women for periods of detention."

Made in Manhattan

A mother of four from Kirkliston, Anna Gristina, was recently revealed as the madam behind a Manhattan sex service.

The 45-year-old was jailed for six months and sentenced to five years' probation after it emerged that she had been peddling call girls, a business that's believed to have operated for 15 years. Gristina was caught on tape arranging for an undercover police officer posing as a client to watch two prostitutes have sex. Prosecutors believe she made dollars 10 million from her business which had a roster of wealthy clients.

Dangerous life for women

Victorian Edinburgh police knew of around 200 brothels in the city, although that is thought to have simply been the tip of the iceberg, with street prostitution rife in some areas. Even Princes Street and Hanover Street were frequented by streetwalkers after dark. Life for a prostitute in those days was certainly a difficult and brief one. Charitable organisations were set up to help them, and found they were dealing with young teenagers and few older women - many simply fell victim to disease or brutality. Many girls rarely lived past the age of 30 and had most had been working girls since their early teens.

 

It takes two to tango

Dance club owners Asher Barnard and Edwin Jones appeared in court in November 1933 accused of attempting to earn money from prostitution.

The pair ran Kosmo Dance Club in Swinton Row, where they were said to have conspired together with a view to gaining money through the prostitution of employees who worked as dance partners or instructresses. Men who were "desirous of having immoral relations" it was claimed, could enter the club and chose a partner or make arrangements by phone. Thirty shillings would be paid to the owners, ten shillings to the women.

A street called desire

Rose Street may have a reputation as being the city's one time red light district, but the Royal Mile in the late 18th century was a thriving street of shame where there were at least 117 brothels to be found. In the 19th century it thronged with loose women who sold themselves for pennies which was often used straight away to buy booze.

The posh New Town wasn't that much better, behind the prim walls of impressive properties. One of the best known areas for brothels in the 18th century was St James Square, however Elder Street also boasted one particular brothel said to be so wild that no decent person would go at night.

James Tytler: Imaprtial and investigative

Vital reading, perhaps, for many an 18th-century gent was Ranger's Impartial List of the Ladies of Pleasure in Edinburgh, written in 1775 by none other than James Tytler.

Tytler's other, more legitimate, achievements included editing the Encyclopaedia Britannica and a particularly flying high career as the first Scot to navigate the skies in a hot-air balloon.

His book reviews 66 of the city's best known prostitutes, providing details of their looks, their personalities and just what they might offer their gentlemen clients.

Among them was Miss Peggy Alexander of Monteith's Cross who, according to the List was: "A smart genteel lass, about 20 years of age, dark brown hair, good teeth, fine skin, and extremely good-natured.

"She has got a very agreeable squint, which sets her off to great advantage."

Most of the ladies receive a range of excellent reviews in Tytler's list.

 

Lady who feel from grace

Lady Agnew of Netherbow was the daughter of a wealthy baronet who fell on difficult times, turning to prostitution to make ends meet. But a scathing review in the 18th century List of Ladies of Pleasure would do little to increase her business. It described her as a "drunken bundle of iniquity", adding: "Lusty and tall, and she has followed the old trade since she was about 13. She regards neither decency nor decorum, and would as willingly lie with a chimney sweep as with a lord. Her desires are so immoderate that she would think nothing of a company of grenadiers at one time. Take her in all, she is an abandoned piece."

Robert Louis Stvenson no stranger to fleshpots

One of Edinburgh's most famous sons, Robert Louis Stevenson, was no stranger to the city's brothels and prostitutes.

While his own family campaigned vociferously against the evils of prostitution and were busy donating money to save the city's fallen women, the Treasure Island author was said to have been among their regular visitors. Biographer Jeremy Hodges claimed the famous writer liked nothing better than to satisfy his own carnal curiosities among the city's seedy underbelly.

And the fleshpots around Leith Street, where bawdy brothel girls flaunted disease-ridden wares and negotiated hurried sex for a few shillings and the illicit drinking shebeens where booze flowed regardless of the law, were where one of the Capital's most famous writers frequently spent his nights. It's not completely clear whether Stevenson visited the brothels for illicit sex or simply because of his fascination for Edinburgh's underbelly.

Among the brothels of his time was Clara Johnson's Clyde Street brothel, the poshest in town, where clients would pay GBP5 to spend time with one of her girls, known not as prostitutes but as "gay girls". The 1871 census revealed them to be young women with previously respectable jobs, whose £8 annual salaries for such skilled jobs would have been dwarfed by their earnings under Clara.

Appeared: Edinburgh Evening News June 2013

c) 2013 Johnston Publishing Limited

Ladies' night pulls in the boys

 

Another blast from the past... it's Edinburgh Festival time again and a regular on the bill is the Lady Boys of Bangkok cabaret show. Went behind the scenes to speak the 'girls' and find out a bit more. Left feeling just a bit unsettled, not because of who they are but why... who pays for their surgery? What route do they take to get where they are? Unanswered questions thanks to a language barrier but my overriding feeling was not a good one...

 

HER hair is honey blonde, her pink and white robe is pulled primly closed and her long legs daintily crossed while she perches on her chair, peering forward, gazing intently at her own reflection.

A sweep of mascara across eyelashes that flutter provocatively, another flamboyant 'mwah' pout into the mirror, then back into the overflowing make-up bag for some bright, sparkling eye shadow and the transformation is well under way.

Nice - pronounced 'Nee' - is ten minutes into her laborious make-up routine, an hour away from slipping into a sparkly, foxy little 'Kylie' outfit and 90 minutes from becoming part of one of the longest running, most successful Edinburgh Fringe acts around.

Look harder at this striking young woman as she sits at the dimly-lit backstage changing rooms at the rear of a massive theatre tent, and it becomes clear why she's such an attraction.

Nice's bone structure - with those delicate high cheekbones, feline eyes, heart-shaped face - is, close up, strangely larger than you might feel it really should be. Her hands, albeit perfectly manicured, just a bit on the big side. Her feet, compared to the average girl's, are absolute whoppers.

When she speaks and gestures, it is with comic-book exaggerated femininity, an over-the-top flick of the hair here and an affected 'head thrown back' giggle there, the way only a 5ft 10ins bloke pretending to be a woman can really do.

Indeed that is exactly what Nice is - or, to be more accurate, was, until not that long ago when surgeons completed the eye-watering operations to give her breast implants, remove her masculine - ahem - appendages and, with a daily cocktail of hormones to create smooth, hair-free peachy skin, make a new woman out of him.

Since then, Nice - like her fellow Lady Boys of Bangkok, born a boy, now very much one of the girls - has never looked back.

Last week, Nice and her fellow Lady Boys gave the grey-suits at the council a flavour of their unique 'third sex' show when they crammed into the public galleries of the typically-staid council chambers in full sequins, feathers and make-up in protest to a proposal that will move them from their Festival home in the Meadows.

Perhaps, it was mooted, they could relocate to somewhere like Sighthill, a proposal that led to much high-pitched squealing, dramatic hair flicking and sobs.

When the decision, after a long debate, came, it was in favour of the Lady Boys. Today, as they rummage through their overflowing make-up bags, it's in the knowledge that next year, their 12th year in Edinburgh at festival-time, they'll be back in their high heels, entertaining crowds, churning up the Meadows' grass once more.

Nice loves Edinburgh, she whispers breathlessly between digging out a sparkling silver eye shadow and smearing it on across her already heavily made-up lids. "I like the shopping," she says. "Top Shop, I buy a dress there."

Mention Harvey Nichols and three of her fellow Lady Boys perched in a row in front of a line of mirrors suddenly swivel around, grinning broadly, and say: "Yes, Harvey Nichols! Is good!"

Suddenly there's a flash of bare flesh as 27-year-old Tui dashes past in a tight vest top and even tighter red knickers which, judging by their smooth outline, seem to suggest that she too has said 'sayonara' to her masculine extras.

In fact, most of the cast have opted for full surgery - possibly less painful than the alternative which involves the longest-serving cast member, 40-year-old Sac, aiding and abetting an eye watering 'nip and tuck' rearguard action of pushing unwanted masculine assets well out of the way.

It turns out that Tui was once a strapping six-foot tall lad, studying resource management at university. Now he is a she, vital statistics of 32-25-37ins with endless, cellulite-free legs and a sparkling pink mobile phone.

The surgery, she explains in what she hopes is a sultry feminine husky tone, didn't hurt at all.

It might well have hurt her wallet, however the explanation as to how Tui made the leap from struggling student lad to fully-qualified 'lady' - a route which for some of Thailand's transsexuals can take them deep into the country's sex trade, suddenly becomes lost in the language barrier.

"Yes," she says. "Very good being Lady Boy. I like to dress beautiful costumes, I like to see the people clap their hands. I wanted try something new with life, see new people, be a new woman!"

Certainly, Edinburgh has embraced their show since their Fringe debut in 1996. When the troupe opted out the following year, their management found themselves fielding questions from fans desperate to see them again. This month, they'll hit the stage 70 times.

As a crowd of giggling women arrive to take a table beside the stage, Lady Boy Sak

says he is delighted the Lady Boys of Bangkok have won the right to return to the Meadows next year. "Edinburgh is like our second home. I love the Scottish people, they are friendly," he says.

"We come back here next year. We love Edinburgh."

FRINGE STALWARTS

THE Lady Boys of Bangkok have become a regular and popular feature of the Edinburgh Fringe, having first appeared in 1996.

* There are 16 performers, supported by front of house and backstage staff.

* Their cabaret style show is a blend of mime, dance, comedy and glamour. Each Lady Boy dances the equivalent of 1.2 miles per show.

* They are the largest Thai company of performers to appear in the west.

* So-called 'lady boys' or 'kathoey' can often be found in Thailand's cities where the attitude towards their lifestyle choice is often relaxed.

* A large number work in entertainment and cabaret shows, however some are linked to the sex industry.

Appeared

25 August 2009

Edinburgh Evening News

The Scotsman Publications Limited

FACE TO FACE

IT'S always fascinating (well, nearly always)to meet people who have done extraordinary things.
And writing their stories becomes a pleasure, not a chore.
It's a fact of life that some people naturally respond better to journalists' questioning than others.
And, by the same token, there are some times when an interview feels doomed from the start: there's little connection or chemistry between you and your subject, their answers are flat and lazy and, to make matters worse, a PR is lingering in the background listening in.
Occasionally (but not very often) there's a horrible sinking feeling as the interview progresses, the point where you wonder what the hell you are actually going to WRITE.
One actress springs to mind with a dazzling on-screen personality but, in real life, fairly bereft of character. In spite of my best attempts to squeeze out something of interest she was a lost cause.
Others you imagine will be blunt and unhelpful turn out to be wonderful to interview.
Another challenge is finding yourself interviewing someone you've already (recently) interviewed. In the case of Irvine Welsh, there wasn't a terribly long gap between interviews but the end results were, I think, poles apart.
Anyway, below are a few 'celebrity' interviews. I've started with three from the bizarre world of the Bay City Rollers, thrown in some sport and some well known faces. More to be posted as and when I find them!