Consuming passions of fantasy fiction
Last updated 22:16, Monday, 10 November 2008
Take a yearning, slightly vulnerable woman, put her in the path of a rugged, moody but oh-so masculine man, and you’ve got the ingredients for nearly every Mills & Boon novel ever written.
While many have criticised the romantic fiction books for their dubious literary standards, it’s impossible to deny their success. It’s been estimated that someone buys a Mills & Boon novel every three seconds.
To mark the books’ 100th anniversary, BBC Four is presenting a one-off drama called Consuming Passions: 100 Years Of Mills & Boon. If you’re already expecting it to be a cheese-fest filled with hammy actors, then prepare to be surprised.
This high-end production, which is directed by Dan Zeff (Lost In Austen, Worst Week Of My Life) and produced by Ben Evans (The Curse Of Comedy, Fear Of Fanny, Fantabulosa!) is written by Shameless scribe Emma Frost.
The cast includes Silent Witness’ Emilia Fox, Jodie Whittaker from Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, Peep Show’s Olivia Colman, Daniel Mays from Funland and Atonement and Bleak House’s Patrick Kennedy.
Actor Patrick Baladi – best known as David Brent’s arch enemy Neil in The Office – was dead keen to join the cast.
“For me it was really fun to play this hero and fantasy figure, just to be that mean, brooding character,” he says.
Consuming Passions focuses on three different stories, with each one looking at how the novels shaped three women’s lives.
Patrick said: “It works because of the really clever and well-constructed script.
“Initially it’s showing you what decade it is and then you quickly understand its genre and it comes together really nicely.”
The story begins with the birth of Mills & Boon – with Charles Boon’s wife Mary finding her husband is sadly lacking when it comes to romance.
“She [Mary] says ‘I just want to be wanted, you need to let me know how you feel sometimes’ and of course his male perspective is ‘I’m working my balls off here, I need you to support me and you want me to show you passion and romance?’,” Patrick says.
“You see him neglecting his wife and he’s reading all of these romance novels about what women want but he doesn’t see his own wife like that.”
Patrick’s own role is in the second part of the drama.
“My storyline is set in the Seventies and it’s told through Olivia Colman’s character Janet, who works in a car salesroom and is pretty much by herself all the time,” he explains.
Janet is an avid reader of Mills & Boon novels, which were often written by other keen fans.
“She goes to the hospital with her mother and meets this doctor and starts to fantasise about him and starts writing because she’s feeling quite down. She begins confusing fantasy with reality and starts turning up to where he is and eventually is quite humiliated by him, disillusioned by this relationship that she thinks is going on.”
For the role, which sees him playing Dr Grant and fantasy figure Dr Rex Steele, Patrick switches between a doctor’s coat and dazzling Seventies gear.
The oft-quoted Mills & Boon storyline, in which female characters are dominated by their dream men, is addressed in the drama’s final storyline. Emilia Fox plays a lecturer, discussing the impact of romantic literature in society with her students.
“In the last story with Emelia the trickiest part was to make the sexuality believable and they’ve done a great job there,” Patrick says.
“It was a lot of fun, but there is danger because it’s a two-dimensional thing of what women want. So you just have to trust the genre and apparently in the Seventies that’s what women wanted and found exciting.”
n Consuming Passions is on BBC Four tomorrow.
