The World of Byron
Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know is set in a world in which the wrong choice of sexual partners is a hanging offence and corrupt forces control the government. Reputation counts for everything.
Born into the fringes of high society, Byron is nothing in the eyes of the elite until he publishes a collection of poetry which makes him a celebrity. When he uses his newfound fame to advocate for the oppressed Luddite weavers, he becomes a target for political destruction.
Tone, Style, Theme
Dark, exciting, and action-filled, Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know has an enigmatic and tempestuous central character and a fast-paced intricate plot.
While exploring a fascinating life, the film exposes a fatal flaw in our society. The reputation of a person, whether true or false, can all too easily overshadow important issues and turn the public against individuals who truly want to serve them.
Shocking, funny, thought provoking, spiritually and politically inspiring, this is a story that is sure to resonate with a wide audience both in the UK and abroad at a time when the public is sickened by government cynicism and yearning to be inspired.
The vision of the project calls for a rich, atmospheric visual style and the rhythmic momentum of a music video. Music will be a key component; it will be edgy and contemporary.
AWARD WINNING SCRIPT
Winner, Nantucket Film Festival Tony Cox Award for Excellence in Screenwriting
Top 2% Academy of Motion Pictures Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting
Details
Period: 1810s
Genre: Period Drama
Budget: £6,000,000
Synopsis
A conservative government manipulates its way to power. Exploited workers are forbidden to
strike. Gays are persecuted and used as scapegoats.
Demonstrators are beaten and arrested. One man, a young writer, risks everything to oppose the
tyranny.
The year is 1812. The place is London. The man is Byron.
Born into the fringes of the English aristocracy, George Gordon, Lord Byron, is nothing in the eyes of high society until at the age of twenty-four he makes headlines with a rabble-rousing speech in support of workers’ rights in the House of Lords. Committed to helping the persecuted weavers known as Luddites, Byron incurs the wrath of the conservative elite, headed by the devious Home Secretary, Lord Sidmouth.
When Byron publishes a book of poetry which instantly makes him the world’s first celebrity, and untouchable, it seems that he has won.
But Byron has a dangerous secret. In a virulently homophobic age, when men convicted of gay activities are put to death, he is passionately bisexual. His love for a younger man inspires the poetry that makes him famous, and paves the way for his destruction.
Involved in a torrid affair with the erratic Lady Caroline Lamb, wife of a future Prime Minister, Byron shares his secret with this least trustworthy woman in England. When he rejects Caroline to find true love with his half sister, Augusta, Caroline’s jealousy joins Lord Sidmouth’s vindictiveness in a rising storm of scandal and persecution that leads Byron to attempt a desperate flight for freedom.
Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know explores the fascinating, complex character of one of the world’s greatest poets in an action-filled journey through the lush decadence of Regency England. It is by turns shocking, funny and provocative.
Characters
Lord Byron
GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON, 24, athletic and physically courageous —a boxer, rider, swimmer— artistic, intellectual, a gifted poet and writer, a dandy, the reigning male sex symbol of the early 19th century, highly attractive to both women and men. A traumatic childhood and complex inner life makes him impulsive and given to excess.
First Viscount
Sidmouth
HENRY ADDINGTON, First Viscount SIDMOUTH. 40’s. Home Secretary in the administration of Lord Liverpool. Receding hairline, thin lips, cold deepset eyes, aloof, hated touching or being touched. Byron’s greatest enemy, determined to destroy Byron to protect the illicit right-wing government of which Sidmouth was a part.
Augusta Leigh
AUGUSTA LEIGH, 29. softly beautiful. Byron’s half-sister. the only daughter of John "Mad Jack" Byron's father, by his first wife. Raised separately from Byron, first met him as an adult. Empathic, supportive, a peacemaker. Married to a dissolute who gambled away her money. The great womanly love of Byron’s life.
Lady Caroline
Lamb
LADY CAROLINE LAMB, 28. Cropped blond curls, so slender and youthful she could pass for a fourteen-year-old boy. Niece of Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire. Feckless anglo-Irish aristocrat and novelist. Struggled with mental instability. Married to William Lamb, conservative politician and future prime minister. Enticed Byron into a well publicised affair which nearly ruined them both.
John Hobhouse
JOHN HOBHOUSE, 25, Byron’s best friend. Not gay, but in love with Byron. Physically solid and strong. Serious, loyal, a politically ambitious reformer. John Bull incarnate. Went on to become a privy counsellor to Queen Victoria as 1st Baron Broughton.
Charles Skinner
Matthews
CHARLES SKINNER MATTHEWS, 23, lean, formidably intelligent, scholarly, irreverent, gay, anxious. Greatly admired by Byron and Hobhouse for his brilliance and his style. A close friend of Byron and Hobhouse from their Cambridge days.
John Edelston
JOHN EDELSTON, younger than Byron, looks eighteen, beautiful, blonde, Trinity College chorister Byron fell in love with at the age of seventeen. The great love of Byron’s life, his great romance. Edelston was Byron’s greatest admirer and Byron wrote some of his most beautiful lyrics of lament to his "musical protégé” using the female name of Thyrza after his untimely death.
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