Pre-Raphaelite drama for BBC Two

The story of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood group of 19th century British painters is to be made into a TV drama, the BBC has announced.

Desperate Romantics will dramatise the activities of the group of painters, poets and critics.

They rebelled against the art establishment of the time by creating a blend of Christian spirituality and veiled eroticism.

The "colourful and rude gang drama" will be screened on BBC Two in 2009.

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 Executive producer Kate Harwood

The BBC says the six-part series will show the men striving to find fame, fortune and "quite a bit of sex along the way".

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood formed in 1848 as a reaction to what they saw as the historical painting of the Royal Academy.

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".