witty

Like all the best TV opening titles, Harlots’ comical, brazen credits sequence announces its personality in miniature. A collage-style animation set to modern music, it shows cut-out characters from William Hogarth’s 18th-century painting series A Harlot’s Progress clustered around a giant, luridly colored female nude. They tuck into her crevices, canoodle on her mountainous behind, nestle between her buttocks, and peep out over the top of two plump hillock breasts. In the shadow between her thighs, female prisoners toil (just another day at the mine), and finally, she’s on her back, legs spread wide as the show’s title appears dead centre: Harlots. Come on in.…