“Desperate Romantics” coming soon to BBC2

More information and new promo photos has been released for BBC 2’s new drama, Desperate Romantics, which will air in six-parts beginning mid-July. The series highlights the life of the artistic Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, founded in 1848 and known for their revival of medieval romanticism.

Starring as the maverick group of English artists, their associates and muses are: Aidan Turner (Being Human, The Clinic), Rafe Spall (A Room With A View, Hot Fuzz), Tom Hollander (John Adams, Pride And Prejudice), Samuel Barnett (Beautiful People, The History Boys), Zoe Tapper (Survivors, Demons), Amy Manson (Torchwood), Sam Crane (Church Going) and Jennie Jacques (The Bill).

Amidst a backdrop of alleys, galleries and flesh-houses of 19th-century industrial London, Desperate Romantics follows the life and love affairs of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of revolutionary artists as well-known for their intertwining love lives as for their ground-breaking paintings.

The scandalous love triangles with their models became the subject of much gossip among their contemporaries, particularly as these relationships often crossed the class barriers of polite Victorian society.

This series, written by Peter Bowker has “bodice-ripper” written all over it; hopefully it will be successful enough to merit dramas about other literary and artistic movements in England (hint, hint . . . the Romantic Poets).

An interactive new website will be launched for the series on July 7th, featuring extensive information on the actual works of the Pre-Raphaelites.

For two character profiles, check out these interviews, one with Aiden Turner, who plays “the Casanova of his time,” Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Samuel Barnett, whose character, John Everett Millais, is best known for his notorious relationship with another man’s wife (no spoilers here!).

~ by Lady Ashley on June 27, 2009.