Intimacy co-ordinator helps actors feel 'safe'

An intimacy co-ordinator is helping actors feel “safe” whilst simulating sex on stage.

Specialist kit and modesty garments are some of the tricks Robbie Taylor Hunt uses to make intimate scenes “look realistic,” whilst ensuring performers “are comfortable and know each other’s boundaries.”

He is working with the cast of Reverberation, showing at Bristol Old Vic until November 2, where sex involving lots of positions is crucial to the story line.

“It’s an incredibly big ask to be nude or simulate a sex act in front of loads of people, we just need to make sure it’s supported and facilitated,” Mr Taylor said.

Mr Hunt decided to train as a queer intimacy co-ordinator after working on romantic scenes as a theatre director.

“I was feeling like I was managing them okay but really there needed to be something else there. When I heard about intimacy co-ordination, it was a very exciting thing for me.”

He said the role originated in the US in 2017, and was introduced in the UK in 2018.

But it was the #Me Too movement that prompted directors and producers to take it more seriously.

“We found that studios and production companies were much more keen to incorporate intimacy processes and have us there on set,” Mr Hunt continued.

Reverberation follows the story of a man using sex as a way of not confronting their issues, and stars The Outlaws' Eleanor Tomlinson, Michael Ahomka-Lindsay and Jack Gibson.

Mr Hunt said it is more difficult to replicate sex scenes in a theatre, rather than on-screen.

“The beautiful Bristol Old Vic is such a brilliant space but you have audience from lots of points of view – left, right, front. So we’re trying to cheat it for a lot of people.

“Often on screen you’ll film it in sections. Particularly in this play, it has an extended intimacy sequence which is long. You have no break there, you’re in it."

"People always think it’s quite a sexy job, it’s actually very unsexy," Mr Hunt continued.

"We’re working with modesty garments – some sort of underwear material that people are wearing to imply a level of nudity that they’re not actually performing in the room.

"Part of my role is working with really good communication ahead of rehearsal and performances so everyone is on the same page about what is being agreed to."

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