Belgravia’s Alice Eve and Tamsin Greig reveal brutally tight corsets left them in agony

BELGRAVIA'S Alice Eve and Tamsin Greig have revealed how the brutally tight corsets they had to wear for the period drama left them in agony.

The two actresses star in new ITV six-part series from Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes, set in the 19th Century.

That period in history saw women were extremely restrictive corsets and full, heavy skirts, which caused a number of problems for both women when it came to their costumes.

Speaking to The Sun Online and other media at a screening of Belgravia, Alice, 38, revealed: "You definitely food didn’t fit in there, not with the organs. So you’d eat at night."

Tamsin, 53, added: "I was under the care of an osteopath quite quickly. And I think I probably should have prepared myself before filming by actually wearing a corset for a couple of hours a day.

"To suddenly be in one for 12 hours a day is pretty tough because were used to being able to move our spines.

"And apparently for spine health the best thing is to be able to move it and to be able to breathe, neither of which you can do.

"At lunch, we had a half hour for lunch and I began to insist that for that half hour, I had to be taken out of it because it was quite hard. I mean it was really hard."

However Alice, who plays Susan Trenchard, took a totally different approach to her painful corset.

She explained: "I felt differently about taking it off because you know when you wear a shoe that’s uncomfortable and you sort of take it off and you sit down and then you’ve got to put the foot back in and you have that parade of dread before its sort of locked?

"I felt that, so I kept the corset on during lunch just in case I’d have to be re-constricted.

"But it does take sort of half an hour to put them on doesn’t it?"

Belgravia sees Tamsin play Anne Trenchard, who holds a secret from the wealthy Brockenhurst family  in the wealthy London area which, if revealed, threatens the inheritance and reputation of many.

Belgravia begins on Sunday, March 15 at 9pm on ITV.