Keys in a bowl.. it's not like that now

Not quite single but still ready to mingle... a swinger speaks up

- KAREN BRYANS

IT IS the show that has us all second-guessing what our neighbours really mean when they wave and smile – or, in most cases, panicking about it.

Because unlike in Channel 4’s sizzling six-part drama, The Couple Next Door, we are not all living next door to smouldering heartthrob Sam Heughan.

The raunchy show has become watercooler TV, with viewers agog at what can happen when you move in next to a pair of young, sexy swingers. 

Starring Jessica De Gouw alongside Sam as Danny and Becka, a couple who love to open up their bedroom, and Eleanor Tomlinson and Alfred Enoch as Evie and Pete, the vanillas next door, the series has us hooked, desperate to see how the love quadrilateral plays out.

With the final two episodes coming next week, the sexual tension and psychological drama seems set to spill over into murder, regret and mayhem.

But while The Couple Next Door might be taking a sinister turn, real-life swinger Rosie Kay insists she is really not that different from the norm.

The 35-year-old from Sheffield, South Yorks, has been living the lifestyle for 12 years, since visiting her first swingers’ club in London. And she has now given up her career as a chef to coach people interested in getting involved in “ethical nonmonogamy”. 

She explained : “Monogamous relationships are two people of any orientation or gender coming together to be exclusive to each other. Non-monogamy is the opposite of that. And ethical non-monogamy is when you decide to open up your relationship in any form but it’s done with consideration. It’s a joint decision.”

Swinging has always had an image problem, though. The Couple Next Door, with its seething passions and roused jealousies, is only the latest example.