Dr. Neil Down Sex Therapist: Session One

Wonderful Hannah Coleman is the only reason you should give a damn about the Neil Down series, with her devilishly wicked smile, large breasts and boundless enthusiasm, Hannah was that rare kind of performer with the Midas touch of turning even the most artless, shot on video trash into porn gold.

Armed with a camcorder, pseudonyms straight out of a joke shop and questionable medical qualifications, Dr Neil Down and Phil Mycock were two muscular specimens who made a grab for fame in the British porn industry at the tail end of the 1990s. Both men were ex-strippers -and by Christ didn't you know it- their Neil Down Sex Therapist series is a textbook example of how queer, straight porn can be, when it's in the hands of male narcissists. Alternating the camerawork between each other, Neil and Phil use the series as an excuse to immortalise their pumped up bodies on video, with the female performers...the people who the punters were paying to see...often lost amidst a jumble of thrusting muscles and buttocks. Be warned, any Neil Down video that doesn't involve Hannah should be considered the porn equivalent of asbestos, something from the past that you'd be well advised not to touch.

Aping the format of such rivals as Ben Dover and Omar Williams, the Neil Down videos embraced the 'gonzo' approach of American pornography, while refusing to give up on the ghost of the 1970s British Sex Comedy era. Our two heroes, Dr Neil Down and his assistant Phil Mycock are two amateur sex therapists whose job drags them into a series of escapades involving bored, repressed women who call on Neil and Phil to be their sexual savours. No L. A. mansions, limousines or hot tubs for these two, keeping it real and British is what Neil and Phil were all about. A succession of student bedsits, messy kitchens and the upstairs of pubs is where Neil and Phil did their loving, with the shot on video production values adding to the home-grown grot. In all likelihood Neil and Phil grew up watching the Confessions and Adventures films on VHS, and recognising positive male role models when they saw them, decided that's what they'd like to do when they grew up. The Neil Down videos giving an idea what those 1970s sex comedy series could have deteriorated into, had they taken the step down to shooting on video, and had gone hardcore.

The initial video releases of the Neil Down videos afforded Neil and Phil their desired 15 minutes of fame, which was mainly played out on late night British TV. Neil showed up as a guest, for a cosy promotional chat on Channel 5's 'European Blue Review'. On the other hand the series was turned into the laughing stock of late night TV on 'Vids', Channel 4's anarchic video review series, which mercilessly took the piss. Vids' review of one of the Neil Down videos ended with host Nigel Buckland exploding into a fury, thrusting his crotch at the camera and demanding to know "what do I have to do to get an erection in this town?"

Both Vids and European Blue Review did at least have the good taste to feature Hannah Coleman in the clips they showed from the Neil Down series. Hannah's first entry into the Neil Down world- from 1999- is 'Mary's Story' aka 'Help, I'm a Virgin'. As with all of Neil and Phil's adventures, Mary's story kicks off with a message being left on Dr Neil's answering machine. This time from Hannah's character, Mary, an 18 year old university student who is desperate to lose her cherry. "All of my friends have had sex and are experienced" pleads Mary "I never meet boys and I feel as if my body's going to explode if I don't have sex soon". Neil and Phil are practically falling over themselves to answer the call. The duo eventually find their way to Mary's messy university digs, much to their delight she's only wearing an oversized red and white rugby style shirt, and is already showing a great deal of leg. Dr Neil asks her a series of mundane questions about university life, while revealing where his head is really at by crash zooming on her shapely legs. Neil asks Mary to sit next to Phil, and even though she's still wearing the red and white striped shirt you get the first idea of the stunning body which that shirt is concealing. Something that doesn't go unnoticed by Dr Neil "you're well endowed really" he tells her, before working up the courage to ask her "it is warm in here, why don't you take your top off". Sure enough the top comes off, leaving Mary's breasts jiggling about in a bra that is barely able to contain them. "You don't get many of those to the pound" Dr Neil blurts out.

Unlike the majority of 1990s hardcore, Mary's Story isn't in any rush to jump straight to the action, with much of its sexiness coming from Neil's gradual, verbal seduction of Mary, and constantly daring her to go further and further on camera. Mary's Story plays an erotic guessing game with its audience...will Neil talk her into taking all her clothes off, maybe she'll allow some foreplay or even for both men to have full sex with her. Or will the duo's love of double entendres cause them to blow the deal, resulting in her seeing through their sex therapist facade and turf their horny butts out of her student digs? Phil takes over the camerawork as Neil takes centre stage in order to remove Mary's bra, then moves on to caressing and kissing her breasts...much to Phil's annoyance and Mary's enjoyment. Mary loosens up but seeks reassurance that their little documentary isn't "going to be on TV", a moment that the makers of Channel 4's Vids couldn't resist actually putting on TV.

Neil takes his 'doctor' persona serious enough to lose his composure whenever his co-stars break character or mock the scenarios they are meant to be playing out. As Hannah strips off and plays with herself on the bed, Phil vents his confusion and frustration as to why they are not just getting along with the job of doing her, complaining that he is "straining at the leash".

Phil is appeased when Neil allows him to join Mary on the bed and suck on one of her tits, albeit followed up by about twenty questions from inquisitor Neil... "do you feel excited", "is that nice" yadda, yadda, yadda.

"I can't believe I'm doing this for the camera" remarks Mary, apologising to Neil and Phil when nerves threaten to get the better of her. She awkwardly removes her panties, finally giving Phil and Neil an eyeful of the crotch that Phil quickly buries his face in.

Watching Hannah Coleman go to work is quite the experience, her loud, intense orgasming suggesting that Phil may have found his true calling in life...in-between her legs. Her sexual ecstasy at this point is always believable, never straying into phoney, porn histrionics. The sight of Hannah thrashing about the bed, her breasts bouncing around in all directions, causes even Neil to temporally ditch his 'purely professional' shtick, in favour of fondling those massive tits.

For all his initial 'straining at the leash' enthusiasm, Phil is oddly detached once the actual sex kicks in, happy to lie back and think of England as Hannah greedily eyes up the bulge in his Calvin Klein underpants. All of which leaves the heavy lifting in the video to Hannah, as her character Mary finally loses her cherry by mounting Phil's hard-on, riding him with all the ferocity of someone charging into Valhalla itself. Be in no doubt, all of the erotic value in this video is down to Hannah Coleman's performance, initially believable as the sweet, but sexually inept, girl next door type, before blowing that screen image apart and embracing the role of the dirtiest girl you could ever hope to meet.

Her performance here breathes new life into the tired virgin/whore fantasy. Like em to talk filth? Then Hannah is your gal. Her dialogue in the latter half of the video is a slew of obscenities worthy of The Exorcist.

Neil is in his element seeing his sexual orders being obeyed, telling Hannah "pull your skirt up", "slowly caress your breasts" and Phil to "take her hand and show her that big chest you've got there".

Hannah attacks the exhaustive demands placed on her in this video with an incredible, animalistic passion. From being screwed hard in the ass by Neil while simultaneously blowing Phil... to sucking off Neil while riding Phil...at one point threatening to completely derail filming by pulling Neil and his camera on top of her and Phil. The video might well be Hannah's equivalent of 'Miss Bohrloch', its a spellbinding sexual showcase for her, in which she outshines and exhausts her male co-stars, despite being outnumbered by them 2 to 1.

Hannah spent 18 months in the porn business, a brief career that took her as far afield as Venice Beach. There Hannah received an idea of what big time fame was like when her looks and British accent caused her to be mobbed by a crowd who had mistaken her for Geri Halliwell. Back on home turf, Hannah was in such high demand that her career serves as a microcosm of 1990s UK porn, and a Who's Who of the era's male performers. Dr Neil, Ben Dover, Omar Williams and Dick Nasty all having the pleasure of her before she quit in 1999, made a brief comeback in 2001, before disappearing into suburban anonymity.

Maybe one day when the olive branch of nostalgia is extended to the 1990s, Hannah Coleman will be recognised as one the decade's great British porn stars. Until then she'll remain a wonderful, salacious memory for those lucky enough to know about her, marred only by sorrow for those who've never heard her name.