Personal Services – 1986

This is not a film directly about Cynthia Payne – the notorious London madame – although she was chief adviser to the movie and this is generally considered to be a biographical account.

Julie Walters shines off the screen as ‘Christine Painter’, a woman whose life the movie charts. Christine at the beginning of the film is scratching a living as a waitress but manages property being let during the day to local whores. The prostitutes have a maid ‘Dolly’ – who is really a man. Dolly shortly becomes Christine’s best friend, not surprising really as Dolly is hilarious and provides a great deal of dead pan humour. ‘She’ is middle aged, grey haired and looks like someone’s grandmother. Dolly knits consistently throughout proceedings.

There is a strong thread of world weariness and matter of factness about the sleazy underbelly of London that Christine and her unusual friends deal with and inhabit. This is one of the movie’s many strenghts. Christine becomes directly involved in this world when an encounter with her landlord results in her giving him a ‘hand job’ (thereafter refered to as a ‘Poppasokaloo’ – the landlords surname). Finding out how lucrative and easy this is – Christine takes the running of the house as her prime job and Dolly becomes her maid. The whores have a new manager. Christine propositions the idea of a continual partnership to Dolly:

Christine: What are you doing for the next couple of weeks?

Dolly: I thought I would knit a cardie…..

Revolving in and around Christine’s world are familiar characters that will provide the backbone of Christine’s life now as a madame. Shirley is a fellow whore but at the top of her game. She is not a raving beauty – but there is a wise dignity to her and is important in being the guide for Christine although this is never made obvious. Shirley notices that Christine is a dab hand at the game. ‘She’s good – she’s very good’, Shirley says to Dolly during the first of their many court appearences. The fights with the establishment – with half of them needing Christine’s services, is a theme throughout. The person that most embodies this contradiction, who also becomes part of Christine’s inner circle – is an ex Wing Commander who imparts to Christine ‘the future lies in kinky people.’

Hipocracy lies in Christine’s personal life as much as it does the professional. A bittersweet encounter with her father at her sister’s wedding, results in both us and Christine realising that there is mote honesty in her life that there is her father’s and sister’s. However, in her private moments Christine yearns for a normal life. A copper asks Christine ‘don’t you ever get the urge for straight?’ She does at one point have a date, but is at the time busy babysitting a pervert who dresses in a gimp outfit and sits in a closet for an hour and a half.

It is not difficult to see the attraction of Christine’s life as the sense of cammeradrie between the regular perverts is very strong. The family-like get togethers inspire sympathy in the viewer and the policemen that interview Christine after a particularly climatic raid held on her premisies. The men and women engaged in this world are harmless. At one point a policeman accuses the Wing Commander of being a dirty old man – to which he replies ‘what’s the point of being old – if you can’t be dirty?’ He is wearing a belly dancing costume at the time.

The scenarios involving Christine’s clients are very funny. A barrister who likes to dress up as a schoolgirl and read lesbian pornography, S&M judges, gimps and best still ‘slaves’ who like to pay Christine for the privilege of doing her garden are the wallpaper of her life. One hilarious insidence has a very normal looking middle aged man tied to the ceiling in woman’s underwear being whipped by Christine dressed in a PVC catsuit. Christine is taking out on him the grief she is receiving from the taxman: ‘how did you know I work for the Inland Revenue? says the poor man. Brilliant.

There is never a hint of the physical dangers of this kind of work, which is the only flaw in this film, as it is doubtful that there can be only moral considerations. But it has to be seen in context to be fully understood. The British Establishment and it’s hipocracies get a well deserved right hook – Christine can never understand what all the fuss is about: ‘I just provide a service.’ A service well appreciated by those who have no appear to have no choice in their particula peccidillo and go to her to provide it. The final scene shows Christine looking around a courtroom at all those she has provided for and feels safe.

Gail Spencer