BBC Two announces The Crimson Petal and the White

Keen to boost its credentials as “the home of intelligent and ambitious drama”, BBC Two has announced details of its dramatisation of Michel Faber’s bestselling novel, The Crimson Petal and the White. Adapted into four 60 minute episodes by playwright and screenwriter Lucinda Coxon and directed by Marc Munden (of The Devil’s Whore and The Mark of Cain fame), The Crimson Petal stars Romola Garai, Gillian Anderson, Richard E. Grant, Chris O’Dowd and Mark Gatiss.

Faber’s book is a psychological thriller which probes into the murky underworld of Victorian sexual politics and prostitution. The screen adaptation casts Garai as the prostitute Sugar, who dreams of escape from the brothel run by Mrs Castaway (Gillian Anderson) while writing her own violent, pornographic novel about a whore taking revenge on her clientele. Chris O’Dowd plays wealthy businessman William Rackham, and Richard E. Grant the physician Dr Curlew. David Thompson, producing the series for Origin Pictures, hails it as an “extraordinary, sexually charged story which will certainly shake up the audience’s perceptions of conventional period drama.” Filming has begun on the series, though no transmission dates have been announced.

• Find The Crimson Petal and the White on Amazon