Flashback lands first drama order

History specialists Flashback TV has bagged its first full-length drama commission with a 75 minute film on the life of famed Regency dandy Beau Brummell.

The film will go out next year as part of a BBC4 season of programmes on the 18th century.  It was ordered by Richard Fell, head of BBC drama’s Fictionlab.

As Flashback md and executive producer Taylor Downing explains, Brummell is “a totally contemporary figure.  He’s about celebrity, fashion and show,” which means that Flashback’s drama will “reflect the contemporary nature of celebrity.”

Simon Bent’s script is currently nearing completion and a director has yet to be appointed.  Casting starts early this year.

The show will not be Flashback’s first foray into the filming of costume drama, as it has also completed The Badness of King George IV for Channel 4.  But that film was interspersed with talking heads to put the story into context, while “this is the next step, historical drama without the historians,” as Downing puts it.

Flashback is also currently in production on an eight hour series on the war in pacific for the US History Channel, five biography shows for the US Biography Channel and a Discovery US series. 

This article appears in Televisual, January 2006.