It’s no surprise that the best-selling memoir of a London high-class prostitute was made into a TV show. It had to happen.

Based on the memoir “The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl,” written by a woman whose pen name is Belle de Jour, the English television show will air on Showtime starting Monday.

And no, do not expect too many steamy sex scenes…I am sorry to disappoint the viewers who looked forward to that, but it seems “The Secret Diary of a Call Girl” is actually not only an excuse to attract audiences through sex. It rather focuses on the drama of leading a double life like Hannah, the series’ main character, does. When they think of prostitutes, many tend to forget these girls actually have personal lives outside their job, that they have families and friends they are afraid to come clean to about what they do for a living, or that they might even be involved in a stable romantic relationship with someone.

This is the case with Hannah, whose call-girl name is Belle and who is played by…surprise!...Billie Piper. The 25-year-old British star is mostly known for her role in “Dr.Who” or her part in “Mansfield Park,” where she played an old-fashioned heroine. Well, it seems Piper has had enough of these characters and wants to be seen as a more complex actress.

“I don’t really want to get stuck into playing extended versions of myself,” she says, as quoted by the Boston Herald. “I quite like playing completely different women to what I have done before. It’s all about the challenge, really.”

Executive producer Andrew Zein also told the Herald that Piper was their only choice for Belle’s role, as he didn’t think there were “many other actresses in the UK who would have brought this role to screen in such an illuminating manner.”

The actress said she didn’t mind the nudity scenes, as they helped better shaping her character. She said she met the real Belle, the woman who wrote the memoir blog on which the series is based. Piper confessed that the most surprising thing she found out during the discussions with Belle, is that men are not as aggressive and self-confident when faced with a prostitute. On the contrary, most or them are quite submissive or “absolutely petrified.”

The main character of the show, Hannah Baxter, is 27 years old and a recent college graduate, who is working as a high-class call-girl for an exclusive London escort agency because she loves money and because she wants to have full control of her life. Not to mention the very flexible working hours…

In a very straight-forward manner, Hannah-Belle talks to the viewers through Piper’s voice, telling them about her funny, strange or boring encounters with clients, etiquette and hygiene issues and her conflicts with family or friends. Like the real Belle who confesses in her blog, Hannah has a best friend who totally disapproves of her job, but only because he has a crush on her. The readers of Belle’s blog can also see that she is a confident woman, who is not at all ashamed of her job and who implies that most people can be considered to sell themselves, each time they are hypocritical towards their bosses or other people they depend on, so that they can obtain profits. Expect Hannah to think quite the same.