Punk Musician Viv Albertine’s Memoirs Set for TV Adaptation

Renowned punk musician Viv Albertine’s memoirs will be adapted as a TV series by Elizabeth Karlsen and Stephen Woolley’s Number 9 Films (“Carol”) and Rachael Horovitz’s (“Patrick Melrose”) West Fourth Films.

Albertine has written two memoirs detailing her upbringing in the ‘70s and rise in punk music as guitarist for all-girl band The Slits (1977-1982) at the height of the punk rock music scene. The first, “Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys,” was published in 2014, and the second, “To Throw Away Unopened,” was published in 2018.

Albertine said: “I’m so happy that Rachael, Elizabeth and Stephen are bringing my books to the screen. Right from the start they were sensitive to the extremely personal nature of the work and I knew the books were in the hands of producers with integrity. Their vision is perfectly in tune with the work, they understand the subject and the times, I can’t wait for the project to get started and to see all the characters in my story come to life.”

Producers Karlsen, Woolley and Horovitz said: “What an exciting and exhilarating prospect to re-explore a time when music, fashion, political ideologies and sexuality were turned on their heads. So beautifully evoked alongside personal insights and frank reflections of an extraordinary woman’s life in Albertine’s two incredible memoirs.”

“Nothing that has happened before or since can match the explosion that was 70s London Punk, and Viv Albertine helped pack the dynamite, place the detonator and light the fuse,” the producers added. “The Slits forged the soundtrack to a gender-bending, iconic cultural revolution and guitarist Viv Albertine was right in the thick of it. She helped create an uninhibited new attitude, a unique musical language and a DIY aesthetic that invaded and ingrained itself into the mainstream.”

Albertine has also written and directed the short “Coping With Cupid,” acted in Joanna Hogg’s “Exhibition,” and contributed to the soundtrack of Hogg’s “Archipelago.”