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

Episodes

Works featured

Episode 1: Episode 2: Episode 3: Episode 4: Episode 5: Episode 6: Other notable images include: 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).

Historical accuracy

Each episode begins with the disclaimer: "In the mid-19th century, a group of young men challenged the art establishment of the day. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood were inspired by the real world about them, yet took imaginative licence in their art. This story, based on their lives and loves, follows in that inventive spirit." In an interview for The Independent, Moyle noted that Bowker's adaptation of her source material required a "chronological sleight of hand" turning "the story that plays out in the book over 12 years into something that feels as if it's taking place over a couple of years – to keep up the pace, to make it feel modern."

Reception

When Desperate Romantics was first shown on BBC Two it attracted 2.61 million viewers. The first episode received mixed reviews; Tom Sutcliffe in The Independent described the series as "an off-day" for writer Peter Bowker, adding: "It was never quite recklessly anachronistic enough to suggest a defence of pre-determination for those moments in the script that seemed more like a spoof of an artistic biopic than a genuine attempt to rise above its limitations." Serena Davies wrote in The Daily Telegraph that the episode: "sadly didn't go far enough in conveying to the viewers how much the Pre-Raphaelites' art contrasted with what had gone before it." Caitlin Moran, reviewing the episode for The Times, described it as "so bone-deep cheesy that it appears to have been written with Primula, on Kraft Cheese Slices, and shot on location in Cheddar." The Guardian review described the first episode as: "a rollicking gambol through a fictionalised Victorian London with a narrative as contemptuous of historical reverence as its rambunctious subjects were." Andrea Mullaney, writing for The Scotsman, also considered it: "a rollicking romp ... it's rather good fun", but cautioned: "historical purists will have to clench their thighs as it plays fast and loose with accuracy – much like the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood themselves, for all their vaunted insistence on painting the truth of nature." The series has been rebroadcast for instance on BBC4 commencing 14 February 2022