The vibrator was a Victorian gift to women, new film Hysteria reveals

Maggie Gyllenhaal will star in a movie that takes a humorous look at the invention of sex aids as a mechanical cure for presumed 'hysteria'. 

Location shooting in London is under way on Hysteria, and the jokes are flying thick and fast. In fact, the film industry is "buzzing" with the news that rival claims to the invention of the first vibrator are to be settled in its screenplay.

The film, in which the Oscar-nominated Maggie Gyllenhaal will appear alongside a British cast including Jonathan Pryce, Sheridan Smith, Ashley Jensen, Rupert Everett and Gemma Jones, is to tell the story of the accidental discovery of motorised sex aids in Victorian England. The film will support the contentious claim that, around 1880, a Dr Joseph Mortimer Granville, played by Hugh Dancy, was the first to create an electromechanical vibrator and that his invention was followed in 1902 by the patenting of a device later retailed by the American company, Hamilton Beach.

"It's set in 1880 and it's based on fact," said Pryce, who plays a physician, Robert Dalrymple, father to Gyllenhaal's character. "There are humorous elements, for sure, but ultimately it's a film about female emancipation and liberation."

You can read the whole article here.