Creators of Netflix hit The Crown to make Rolling Stones TV drama charting heyday of Dartford rockers
12:06, 23 December 2020
updated: 14:06, 23 December 2020
The creators of The Crown will swap controversial monarchs for rock 'n' roll royalty with a new drama charting the origin story and heyday of The Rolling Stones.
Dartford-born rockers Mick Jagger and Keith Richards have approved the use of their songs for the as-yet unnamed TV series.
The production company Left Bank Pictures, which is behind the hit Netflix series The Crown and historical drama Outlander, has been commissioned by FX, a Disney-owned US channel, to create the programme.
It will run for at least two seasons and aims to show the jet-setting band's origins and their meteoric rise to fame following their 1960s debut.
About a Boy and High Fidelity author Nick Hornby, has been tasked with overseeing the script which will cover a time period up until 1972, producing such hit albums as Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street.
"I was born in a crossfire hurricane..." sang Mick Jagger on 1968 single Jumpin' Jack Flash.
But in actual fact he wasn't; he was born in Livingstone Hospital in Dartford, on July 26, 1943 as was fellow band mate Keith Richards later the same year.
The pair both attended Wentworth Primary School and lived nearby until Jagger's family departed for nearby Wilmington and the rockers both went their separate ways and attended different local secondary schools.
A chance encounter would see a fresh-faced 18-year-old Jagger reunite with Richards again on 17 October, 1961 at platform two of Dartford railway station.
They shared a mutual interest in music and later got together with a bunch of other teenage musicians who became part of one of the most iconic rock bands of all time, The Rolling Stones.
It's not the first time the origin story of the Stones has been retold on screen.
The 2012 documentary Crossfire Hurricane, made by Brett Morgen, tells the story of The Stones' journey from blues obsessed teenagers in the early sixties to rock 'n' roll icons.
Before this, legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese created Shine A Light, providing a backstage pass ahead of some of their iconic gigs.
Some of the rock band's darker moments were charted in 1970's "Gimme Shelter", named after the lead track from the group's 1969 album Let It Bleed, and which chronicled their ill-fated 1969 US tour and the tragic events of the Altamont Speedway concert.
Earlier this year, the Stones reissued their 1973 album Goats Head Soup and also released the song “Living in a Ghost Town”, their first new material since 2016.
Mick Jagger has been known to reach out to local charities and recently supported Gravesend hospice care charity ellenor's Christmas fundraising appeal.
The 77-year-old rocker has made frequent trips back to Dartford Grammar School, where he was a pupil, and opened an extension to the arts centre named after him in 2000.
Ten years later he returned to give his seal of approval to a massive £900,000 facelift to the Mick Jagger Centre at the West Hill school, where a new foyer and impressive dance studio with glass floor-to-ceiling mirrors had been built.
A new mural showcasing the band's greatest hits is planned for One Bell Corner, as part of the Dartford High Street improvement works, in another nod to the town's rock 'n' roll legacy.
