He is the enfant terrible of the art world, one half of the visual art duo whose provocative exhibitions have featured everything from sex dolls to Nazi insignia.
Now Jake Chapman is to turn his talents to television for the first time, creating an original series to be broadcast on Sky Arts.
The four-part drama, which will be titled Mills and Doom: The Marriage of Reason and Squalor, has been billed by Sky as a “highly original, twisted romance” and “wildly imaginative, hypnotic and strangely unsettling”.
Starring Welsh actor Rhys Ifans and Sophie Kennedy Clark, who featured in Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac, the series will follow a bride-to-be, Lydia, who is given an island by her fiancé. She then discovers a mysterious author Helmut Mandragorass, played by Ifans, living on the island, and so unfolds the tale, which combines reality and fantasy.
The show was adapted from Chapman’s own romantic novel, penned in 2008. Sky said it would offer a playful twist on the saccharine stories published by Mills & Boon. In a review of the original novel, the writer Will Self said: “He rips off arms and hurls them against the glibness and facility that characterise contemporary literature – my eyes bled.”
This will be the second time that Ifans has featured in work by the Turner-nominated Chapman brothers, having previously starred in their very graphic, surreal short film the Organ Grinder’s Monkey.
Speaking about his foray into new artistic territory, Chapman said: “After dedicating most of my artistic life to examining the dark underbelly of human existence, I was utterly delighted when Sky Arts expressed interest in a lesser-known facet of my creative passion.
“The island of Morass and its inhabitants have long lived inside my imagination and it’s exciting to bring them to life on Sky Arts. We’re glad they’ve joined us out on this limb – albeit a limb wrenched from its screaming red socket.”
The screenplay for the drama was written by American screenwriter Brock Norman Brock, who co-wrote 2008 film Bronson. The drama is currently shooting in west London and Barbados and will be broadcast in the summer.
Sky Arts director Philip Edgar-Jones added: “We loved Jake’s idea from the outset, and the real thing promises to bring this unique creation to life in full, technicolour glory.
“We’re always on the lookout for drama ideas that will deliver artistic TV as well as compelling storytelling, and this does both. It’s a gorgeously dark romantic tale with something really interesting to say at its heart.”
