Secret Diary of A Call Girl - Characters

Characters

• Hannah Baxter/Belle (Billie Piper)

Hannah is a university graduate living in London and – unbeknownst to her family – is also the high class call girl known as "Belle". Hannah is well educated, very eloquent and intelligent. She has expensive tastes and is at times slightly snobbish. She loves her job as a call girl as she is being paid handsomely to do something she does very well. She comes from an average middle-class family who live outside of London; she's close to her father but remains somewhat distant from her older sister who is married with an infant son. Hannah reveals she has tried several professions but struggles to keep down a steady job (as revealed in series two). Hannah is an expert at leading a double life, and is a meticulous planner – her specialty is role-playing fantasies. Hannah is a self-employed call girl, having left Stephanie's agency during the series' run.

• Ben (Iddo Goldberg)

Ben is Hannah's best friend and ex-boyfriend from her university days. Ben is the manager of a London bar. His relationship with his on-and-off girlfriend Vanessa is made complicated by his feelings for Hannah. Ben was engaged to Vanessa but backs out of the wedding, instead opting to move outside of London with Vanessa in series two. He knows about Hannah's secret life, which causes much friction between the two at times. Ben has a tendency to stir trouble when he disagrees with Hannah's ways of dealing with things in her life and will often go out of his way to prove his point – especially if it involves other men in her life.

• Stephanie Charlton (Cherie Lunghi)

Stephanie is Belle's madame in series one; she was once a call girl like Belle herself. Rich and glamorous, with a cutting sense of humour and cynical attitude, she reluctantly looks out for Belle, offering her advice and help. At times, Stephanie has a tendency to seem quite cold-hearted and unfeeling and will constantly advise her 'girls' away from having romantic attachments. In series three, it is revealed that Stephanie had a lesbian relationship with a woman who broke her heart. Actress Cherie Lunghi has said "there's a maternal aspect to ." Stephanie features in series four, having been placed in jail. Hence, she asks Hannah to temporarily run the agency during her sentence, and to look after her daughter Poppy (Lily James), who is unaware of her mother's real job or her true whereabouts.

• Bambi/Gloria White (Ashley Madekwe)

Bambi started as a naive wannabe-escort who was mentored by Belle in series two. Fun-loving Bambi, who started as an escort for money, is now working for Stephanie. In series three, she deals with her rate being dictated by her race and becoming too close to one of her clients. Bambi has lived a notably harder life than Hannah and has been prone to bad relationships and subject to domestic abuse. Bambi has several scars on her upper arms that she generally hides with shrugs and wraps. In series three, Bambi meets and marries her client Byron, an outlandish aristocrat. Bambi does not appear in series four.

• Duncan Atwood (James D'Arcy)

Duncan is Belle's publisher in series three, who is urging Belle to write a second book after the success of her first. Belle, despite claiming to have only a working relationship with Duncan and that she does not fancy him, has several on-screen liaisons with him. Belle then starts to have a relationship with him. But friction between Ben and Duncan causes Belle to fall out with Ben. Duncan then has a professional appointment with Bambi, who is at the time unaware that he is Belle's boyfriend. When this becomes known to Belle, she decides to end their relationship, on the basis that he may have slept with numerous other girls, both escorts and non-escorts. Duncan is portrayed as the stereotypical workaholic and a frequenter of call girls.

• Alex (Callum Blue)

Alex is a doctor whom Belle initially mistakes for a client in series two. They date and begin a relationship, while Hannah keeps Alex unaware of her secret night life as the call girl "Belle". After discovering her secret, he leaves her, saying he can't deal with her chosen career. Hannah then gives up prostitution and tries to have a "real" job, but finds it tedious and unfulfilling. They mutually decide to separate as he feels she is not all she can be without prostitution, and she cannot fully be happy without her life as "Belle". Alex does not appear in series three, neither is he explicitly mentioned, though, like other former characters, is implicitly referenced in the series three finale, when Ben tells Hannah his view on all her previous boyfriends.

• Byron Seebohm (David Dawson)

Byron is an eccentric young gentleman who comes from an aristocratic family who falls outside of his kind by dressing in the general scruffy, bohemian style while finding various ways to bend the conventional stereotype of his birthright. He becomes one of Bambi's regulars in series three, after her wage is increased to £350 an hour. The pair fall madly in love with each other, much to Hannah's disdain. "Young guy, old money" is Stephanie's description of Byron, a reference to both his noble background and his apparent inheritance of a large sum of money, which would explain how he finances his visits to high-class call girls. In the finale of series three, Bambi and Byron get married. Byron does not appear in series four.