Television: Desperate Romantics | Storyville: The Time Of Their Lives

THIS WEEK'S NEW DRAMA ABOUT the Pre-Raphaelites is so keen – desperate, even – to overthrow their clinging reputation as foppish painters of wet ladies in ponds, that I wouldn't have been surprised if the cast had suddenly broken into a cover of Sid Vicious' version of My Way. For this is about the artists as young punks, proto-rock and rollers out to destroy the Establishment by any means necessary.

Desperate Romantics is the sort of thing you can only describe as a rollicking romp and it's rather good fun, though historical purists will have to clench their thighs as it plays fast and loose with accuracy – much like the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood themselves, for all their vaunted insistence on painting the truth of nature.

Contemporary critics dismissively dubbed them "the Fleshly School" and there is, of course, lots more here about sex than art, which in the first part at least is confined to the usual montage sequences. But for once it's hardly a gratuitous imposition by screenwriter Peter Bowker – on a roll after his impressive, intense Occupation last month – as the Pre-Raphaelite cult has always been as much about their friendships, affairs and feuds as about the work.

Dominating the drama is Dante Gabriel Rossetti, played by Aidan Turner, who brings the same louche hunger to the role as he does as the vampire in Being Human (and come to think of it, Rossetti did rather drain his muse Lizzie Siddal and was obsessed with her coffin).

All hair and throbbing breeches, Rossetti sweeps his fellows along: milky former child prodigy John Millais (Samuel Barnett) and grumpy William Holman Hunt (Rafe Spall), known as "Maniac". Together they'll conquer the art world, if only they can duck their creditors, set up an exhibition and persuade the great critic John Ruskin to come.

They're not the only ones with that problem, as while the Brotherhood are happily seducing their "stunners" – the working-class girls they both glorified and exploited – poor old Ruskin is driving his frustrated wife to distraction by his continual rejections. A towering intellectual figure in his day, Ruskin's reputation has become overshadowed by his famously confused sexuality, conveyed here a bit obviously, but not unfairly, by some lurid fantasies. Tom Hollander is as good as ever as the quintessential repressed Victorian, who murmurs things like: "You've painted a woman displaying sexual appetite and that is never attractive." Naturally, the eventual combination of Ruskin and the Brotherhood could only go one way.

While the bawdy cheerfulness of Desperate Romantics works fairly well for their early career, I'm not sure it can be sustained through the darker periods of their lives. It will be interesting to see how the drama develops Rossetti's callousness or shows how the "Maniac" could paint something as chilling as his masterpiece, The Scapegoat.

At least they started young. The charming and acidic Alison Selford in Storyville: The Time Of Their Lives advises: "I can't recommend being 87. Try to get your life's work done before then, dear, you will find it easier." She's speaking to director Jocelyn Cammack, who has made a good start on it with this unusual film about The Mary Feilding Guild, a London residential home where the residents are more likely to lobby parliament than watch daytime TV.

Selford was a novelist and TV critic for the Daily Worker. Also featured in the film are Hetty Bower, a veteran peace campaigner still marching at 102, and Rose Hacker, a lifelong Labour activist and artist who became a local newspaper columnist at 100. Others may be less radical, but they are no less dauntingly intelligent – the place has a strict entrance policy and is jokingly called a "home for aged intellectuals."

But despite activities like tai chi, crosswords and politics, the residents do seem to want to leave: that is, finally. They've had it with the petty aggravations of age, they say, the physical limitations and minor irritations. "Living is existing for me at the moment," says Bower. Her only enjoyment is "having the mental capacity to advocate peace".

So it seems that this poignant film, part of BBC4's Grey Expectations series, has a rather ironic title. Even in this best-case scenario, these very elderly ladies seem weary – but there's still a spark there. Watch out for a very funny comment over the end credits.