The Sex Pistols brought Anarchy in the UK, now 44 years later they’re bringing it to your TV screen thanks to cinema legend Danny Boyle.
In news that’ll excite punks of the new and old-school variety, and lovers of gritty drama Trainspotting, the director has signed on to direct a new six-part series based on the 2017 memoir from Sex Pistol’s guitarist Steve Jones.
The limited-run series titled Pistol will focus on Steve’s rags-to-riches origin story, bringing Boyle’s darkly comedic yet confronting directorial style to a tale that’s almost too wild to be true.
Tracing Jones’ unconventional rise from West London council estate to driving force of the late 70’s punk revolution, Pistol also promises to bring the short but explosive career of the Sex Pistols to our screens, with all of the raucous hedonism intact.
With a strong cast including Babyteeth’s Toby Wallace as Steve Jones, 1917‘s Anson Boon as infamous Sex Pistols frontman John ‘Johnny Rotten’ Lydon, Enola Holme‘s Louis Partridge as Sid Vicious ‘Pistol’ and many, many more, Pistol has the acting chops to bring one of music’s most intense and interesting periods snarling back to life.
Created by Moulin Rouge co-writer Craig Pierce who teamed up with Frank Cottrell Bryce, the legend behind 2018’s Sometimes Always Never, to write the teleplays, Pistol looks sure to bring all elements of the 70’s punk era in a dramatised yet still honest fashion.
The high-drama, sex, drugs and violence of the Sex Pistol’s brief run on top of the musical world, seems a perfect fit for Boyle’s grim style and the celebrated director seems to be going ‘all-in’ on it.
“Imagine breaking into the world of The Crown and Downton Abbey with your mates and screaming your songs and your fury at all they represent,” says Danny Boyle in a statement. “This is the moment that British society and culture changed forever. It is the detonation point for British street culture, where ordinary young people had the stage and vented their fury and their fashion — and everyone had to watch and listen, and everyone feared them or followed them.”
Production is slated to start in March and while there’s now release date yet, at Music Feeds we’ll be watching this space in anticipation.
In the meantime, let’s revisit some of the filth and the fury of the Sex Pistol’s with the iconic video for ‘God Save The Queen’.
