Desperate Romantics is a six-part television drama serial about the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, first broadcast on BBC Two between 21 July and 25 August 2009.
The series somewhat fictionalised the lives and events depicted. Though heavily trailed, the series received mixed reviews and dwindling audiences.
Overview
The series was inspired by and takes its title from Franny Moyle's factual book about the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Desperate Romantics: The Private Lives of the Pre-Raphaelites.
Moyle, a former commissioning editor for the arts at the BBC, approached writer Peter Bowker with the book, believing it could form the basis of an interesting television drama. Although Bowker had a self-confessed "horror of dramatised art biography", he felt that Moyle's book offered something different, viewing the Brotherhood's art largely through the filter of their tangled love lives.
Discussing the series' billing as "Entourage with easels", Moyle said: "I didn't pitch it as 'Entourage with easels' ... I pitched it as a big emotional saga, a bit like The Forsyte Saga. Having said that, I think it was a useful snapshot – a way of getting a handle on the drama." The series had also been billed by the BBC as "marrying the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood to the values of Desperate Housewives."
Desperate Romantics was not the first time the lives of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood had been dramatised for television. In 1967 Ken Russell had directed Dante's Inferno, and in 1975 there was The Love School – a six-part serial first broadcast in 1975. Whereas Bowker's drama about the PRB was an adaptation of Franny Moyles' book, The Love School (scripted by John Hale, Ray Lawler, Robin Chapman and John Prebble) was adapted into a novel published by Macmillan in 1975. The new dramatisation was greatly influenced by the earlier series.
Cast
Aidan Turner as Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Rafe Spall as William Holman Hunt
Samuel Barnett as John Everett Millais
Sam Crane as Fred Walters
Zoë Tapper as Effie Gray
Amy Manson as Lizzie Siddal
Jennie Jacques as Annie Miller
Tom Hollander as John Ruskin
Phil Davis as Frank Stone
Mark Heap as Charles Dickens
Rebecca Davies as Fanny Cornforth
Dyfrig Morris as William Morris
Peter Sandys-Clarke as Edward Burne-Jones
Natalie Thomas as Jane Burden
Poppy Lee Friar as Rose La Touche
Samuel West as Lord Rosterley
Episodes
Works featured
Episode 1: Christ in the House of His Parents (1849–1850) by John Everett Millais Ecce Ancilla Domini (1850) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti Valentine Rescuing Sylvia from Proteus (1851) by William Holman Hunt The Hireling Shepherd (1851) by William Holman Hunt
Episode 2: Ophelia (1851–1852) by John Everett Millais The Awakening Conscience (1853) by William Holman Hunt Found (1854–1881) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Episode 3: The Order of Release, 1746 (1854) by John Everett Millais The Light of the World (1853–1854) by William Holman Hunt
Episode 4: The Scapegoat (1856) by William Holman Hunt Dante's Dream at the Time of the Death of Beatrice (1871) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti Study of a Female Nude (1878?) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti The Lady of Shalott (1853) by Elizabeth Siddal Lovers Listening to Music (1854) by Elizabeth Siddal Autumn Leaves (1856) by John Everett Millais The Blind Girl (1856) by John Everett Millais The Ladies' Lament (1856) by Elizabeth Siddal The Rowing Boat (undated, c. 1850–1860) by Elizabeth Siddal Bubbles (1886) by John Everett Millais
Episode 5: Bocca Baciata (1859) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti The Shadow of Death (1872) by William Holman Hunt Oxford Union murals (1857–1859) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones et al.
Episode 6: Beata Beatrix (1872) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti Study of Guinevere for Sir Launcelot in the Queen's Chamber (1857) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Other notable images include: Ecce Ancilla Domini (1849–1850) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti Dante's Vision of Rachel and Leah (1855) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti The Holy Family (undated) by Elizabeth Siddal
The poem Rossetti writes for Lizzie as she recuperates from her ordeal in Millais' bath tub is "Sudden Light" (c. 1853–1854, published 1863). The final stanza, which Rossetti reads aloud to Lizzie before they first make love, appears in the 1870 edition of Rossetti's Collected Poems. Also featured are "Newborn Death" and "The Kiss". The verses read at Lizzie's funeral by her sister are from Lizzie's own poem "Dead Love" (c. 1859).