Undeniably eye-popping: BBC2’s Louis Theroux – Selling Sex reviewed

Victoria, a single mother in her early thirties, is getting her children ready for school — ensuring an equitable distribution of toast and issuing a series of determinedly patient instructions. (‘Listen to Mummy, you need to put your socks on.’) Once they’re gone, she then heads to a hotel to meet the first man that day who’ll be paying her £250 for sex. ‘It’s the perfect job for me,’ she explains cheerfully. ‘Very flexible.’

Victoria was one of three women featured in Louis Theroux: Selling Sex (BBC2, Sunday) for which Louis furrowed his familiar brow, adopted his finely honed bemused expression and set off to investigate transactional sex in digital-age Britain. Victoria, for example, advertises on the website AdultWork, where her clients can rate her TripAdvisor-style. (‘A splendidly satisfactory young lady,’ wrote one, rather quaintly.) They can also read her self-description as both ‘a classy lady’ and ‘the filthiest lady you would ever meet’.