First Look: Desperate Romantics, BBC Two

Fans of period dramas were no doubt rubbing their hand together with glee at the prospect of Desperate Romantics. 19th Century London? Check. Heaving bodices? Check. Lots of industrial-strength gin? Check. Enormous beards and fine waistcoats? Double check. Everything is in place to make Desperate Romantics one of the drama events of the year. So what's it like?

Desperate Romantics is written by TV's current writing star, Peter Bowker. He wrote the excellent Occupation, and is the man behind ITV1's decent Wuthering Heights incarnation. So he's got some serious pedigree at the moment, and I was really looking forward to seeing this tale of a group of idealistic young painters - who call themselves the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood - who are intent on becoming stars of the art world and shaking up the stuffy system.

It's got a decent cast too. Being Human's Aiden Turner plays Dante Gabriel Rossetti, a swarthy playboy sort of character, Rafe Spall is the manly and conflicted William Holman Hunt, Tom Hollander plays the seriously repressed art critic John Ruskin, Zoe Tapper plays his wife, and the always excellent Ian Puleston-Davies plays a working class father of an aspiring young model.

So both behind and in front of the camera there's decent pedigree. It's based on real characters (another of the Brotherhood, the nervous and fey John Millais painted the bona fide masterpiece, Ophelia), and everything is set up for a serious, melodramatic piece on tortured artists.

Except it doesn't quite play out that way. Everything, from the bouncy, off-beat opening credits, to the almost modern-day feel to the dialogue, makes it out to be more like a comedy. In fact, seeing a larger-than-life version of Charles Dickens and all the mucking about, it's almost like a period version of Men Behaving Badly.

Everyone looks the part - Aiden Turner is a good looking boy, Zoe Tapper is, as ever, bloody gorgeous, and Amy Manson as the Brotherhood's flame-haired muse, Lizzie Siddal, is breathtaking - but it's certainly not what I expected.

I've read elsewhere that people are disappointed with the whole comedic approach to it all, but I didn't not enjoy it - if anything it reminded me of Russell T Davis' very rompy version of Casanova, which was enormous fun.

It's just that I was expecting something a bit deeper. Granted, I've only watched two episodes, so it may settle down a wee bit, but I do wonder whether the whole theme of a bunch of young carousers sitting around doing nothing much except stare at women, fall in love with the women they stare at and only talk about doing some work can be sustained over six episodes.

Still, I relatively enjoyed Desperate Romantics. Just don't expect anything too serious.

It starts on BBC Two next week (Tuesday 21st July 2009).

Original article here.