The story of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood - a group of young British 19th Century painters - is being made into a TV drama.

Desperate Romantics will follow the vagabond group of English painters, poets and critics who rebelled against the art establishment of the time.

The BBC Two "colourful and rude gang drama" will see the men strive to find fame, fortune, success, love and "quite a bit of sex along the way".

The six-part series will be set among the alleys, galleries and brothels of 19th Century industrial London and broadcast in 2009/10.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood formed in 1848 in reaction to what they branded as the historical painting of the Royal Academy. They admired the direct depiction of nature, particularly before the time of Raphael.

Executive producer Kate Harwood said: "Desperate Romantics paints a modern, vivid and irreverent portrait of this group of painters whose attitude to the establishment makes them comparable to the punks a hundred years later."

A BBC spokeswoman said: "The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood were like the boy band of the 19th Century".

Desperate Romantics is penned by Peter Bowker, whose credits include Blackpool and Shakespeare Re-Told.

It is _base_d on Franny Moyle's factual book of the same name, which will be published later this year. Moyle will also executive produce, while Ben Evans (The Curse of Comedy season) will produce.

Desperate Romantics will be filming in London early next year and is due for transmission in the 2009/10 season.

Source: http://www.c21media.net/news/detail.asp?area=1&article=43597