'Aafrin is topless. A wonderful start!' New series of Indian Summers gets viewers hot under the collar after heartthrob actor Nikesh Patel whips his shirt off

Sunday nights, traditionally the preserve of Countryfile and the Antiques Roadshow, just got a whole lot sexier according to fans of the second series of Channel 4 period drama Indian Summers.

Viewers tuning in to watch the show, which retells the last days of the Raj in the 1930s, found the jungle setting of the Himalayas wasn't the only thing getting steamy as two central characters enjoyed a passionate clinch.

Shortly after the show aired at 9pm, Twitter was awash with comments about the fact that central character Aafrin Dalal (Nikesh Patel) seemed to wear not very many clothes during the opening episode.

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'He's a beautiful man...' Viewers of Indian Summers, the Channel 4 period drama that aired last night at 9pm, were smitten with the sight of a near-naked Nikesh Patel, who plays central character Aafrin Dalal (Pictured with Kaira Das, played by Sugandha Garg)

 Well, it is hot in India...Nikesh Patel left some viewers swooning 

Fans needing fans...Twitter was awash with comments about Nikesh Patel's topless scenes

Twitter user @t_catttt was distracted from the drama by Patel's good looks: 'Aafrin is a beautiful looking man... and a body to boot!'

And she wasn't the only one enjoying the fact that one of the show's central protagonists seemed to be straight from the Poldark school of what to wear.

‏@LauraEms_ added: 'Aafrin is topless. A wonderful start.' ‏@abiknathan was similarly impressed, penning: 'God damn, forgot how sexy Aafrin was #IndianSummers' while ‏@shortcrustpie wrote: 'Ooooh! Aafrin! *fans self* #IndianSummers.' 

To be fair to the show's creators, at least there's an excuse for Patel's near-nakedness. 

The drama, which has a cast that also includes British acting royalty Julie Walters, is set in 1935, three years on from the first series, and the characters are back in their summer retreat in the Himalayan hill station of Simla. 

The character of Kaira Das (Sugandha Garg) shared an intimate smooch with Aafrin in last night's episode

The show's makers have promised that this series will be raunchier than the last

But Nikesh Patel says he can't yet get used to idea of being a heartthrob...

'He doesn't ever need to wear a shirt again does he? Nikesh Patel fans were more than happy to watch him disrobe in last night's episode 

Despite being 7,000ft above sea level, Simla, where the rulers of British India hoped to find respite from the raging Indian sun, is still pretty hot. 

Elsewhere on Twitter, @roshETC enjoyed the disrobing: 'Just putting it out there, Nikesh Patel really doesn't ever need to wear a shirt again, does he?'

The show, which airs at 9pm, has previously been described as a 'Downtonesque Jewel in the Crown' and should please those who are missing the hole left by War and Peace. 

Alice (Jemima West) and her lover Aafrin (Nikesh Patel) all returned, along with the Machiavellian manipulator Cynthia Coffin, played by Julie Walters. 

Watch out The Night Manager: The cast of the new series of the period drama Indian Summers, which recounts the last days of the Raj in the Thirties, and is hoping to rival the BBC's The Night Manager

Sunday night steaminess: Aafrin (Nikesh Patel) and Alice (Jemima West) are reunited as lovers in the second series of the hit show about British Indians in Simla

The illicit lovers steal a kiss; the series is said to be even steamier than last season

Tensions were high when Alice and Aafrin are reintroduced after three years apart.

Of the show's second outing, Jemima West says: 'A lot of what happens in the new series will be even darker, more dramatic and more sensuous than in the first.'

Fans of the heartthrob actor can apparently look forward to lots more 'shirt off' moments.

Nikesh told the Daily Mirror that he never expected himself to be a heartthrob: 'As we filmed those scenes I never thought I might be having a Poldark moment.'

But we are also introduced to Alice's husband Charlie, played by Blake Ritson, whom she claimed had died years ago, and the new woman in Aafrin's life.

BATTLE OF THE SUNDAY NIGHT VIEWING FIGURES: CHRISTOPHER STEVENS ON HOW INDIAN SUMMERS COMPARES WITH THE NIGHT MANAGER

Brooding and intense, and barely decent was Christopher Steven's take on the character of Aafrin

Sunday nights are getting so saucy that pretty soon you’ll have to be over 18 to watch Countryfile. First there was topless Aidan Turner waving his scythe about in Poldark, and naked soldiers splashing like bathing belles in War And Peace.

Now Tom Hiddleston has whipped down his boxers to display his bare buttocks on BBC1 for a bedroom scene in The Nude Manager. Or, since co-star Elizabeth Debicki is also falling out of her clothes every other minute, perhaps should that be Tinker, Tailor, Stripper, Spy.

How was Indian Summers (C4) to compete as it returned to the 9pm slot? Why, by having its star naked to the waist from the start. Nikesh Patel, who plays secret revolutionary Aafrin, was bashing away at the typewriter, all brooding and intense, and barely decent.

He looked like a male model who was pretending to be literate for a photoshoot. This, no doubt, is how Salman Rushdie imagines he must appear when he is writing.

Why Aafrin had forgotten to put his clothes on, we were not told.

Possibly he’d been in too much of a rush to get to his portable typewriter, after leaping out of his lover’s bed. But if that was the case, why had he taken the time to trim and groom his chest hair so carefully?

Indian Summers built a reputation last year for racy Raj drama, with memsahibs driven mad with lust by the heat of the merciless sun.

Sunday telly has veered much closer to full-blown soft porn since then, and Patel has a lot of catching up to do if he is to compete with Tom Hiddleston’s bottom.

Julie Walters saved the drama, said Stephens, with a rousing performance as Machiavellian manipulator Cynthia Coffin

The plots to both this and The Night Manager are basically the same, except one is about arms deals and the other is set in the last days of the British Empire. Both Patel and Hiddleston play moody characters nursing broken hearts who infiltrate the enemy HQ by posing as heroes and getting themselves half-killed in the process.

When he’s got his shirt on, Patel makes a plausible clerk inside the Raj bureaucracy, a loyal and silent servant to the ruthless young diplomat Ralph Whelan (Henry Lloyd-Hughes).

What doesn’t make sense is the idea that Ralph, a suburban upstart without a smudge of posh blood, is next in line to be Viceroy of India.

In 1935, the real viceroy was the Earl of Willingdon, a lord in ermine like every one of his predecessors for 60 years. Young Ralph would have stood about as much chance of being viceroy as he did of being the Chinese Emperor.

Unbelievable it may be, but Indian Summers is not completely unwatchable, thanks to a riotous turn from Julie Walters as the local madam.

She welcomed a crowd of booze-sodden Brits to her clubhouse in the Himalayan foothills, wearing a red, white and blue turban that opened to reveal a white dove.

The dove refused to fly away, so Julie jumped up and down like a madwoman on a pogo stick. 

A main character is also set to die during the second series but we have no clues as to who. 

The storyline around Julie Walters' character, Cynthia Coffin, is also poised to get 'darker' as more is revealed about her life and relationship with civil servant Ralph Whelan, played by Henry Lloyd-Hughes.  

Producer Dan Winch says of the more serious material: 'We have worked hard on taking greater risks in every way for series two.

'We’ve stayed mindful we’re reaching out to an audience in the UK, the US and hopefully others. Some American reviews referred to how racy the show can be. 

 'We have strived to push the boundaries – particularly on intimacy.'

BAFTA winner Julie Walters, 66, plays one of her sexiest roles yet and told The Sunday Mirror that some of the naughty scenes have left her in fits of laughter.

She said: 'The 60s is a great decade. I'm probably more adventurous now and have more energy than in my 40s or 50s. 

'It might be a slippery slope to your 70s and it might take you longer to learn your lines but you're through the menopause and not yet decrepit. 

'I also think it's a really happy decade because you're not struggling with anything and everything feels more in its place.'

Julie Walters, who plays Cynthia Coffin,  told a Sunday newspaper she is not too old for a rude scene or naughty role