C4 orders comedy-drama based on the memoirs of an OCD sufferer

Channel 4 has commissioned a new comedy-drama about a young woman who has frequent uncontrollable sexual thoughts brought on by her obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Pure is based on Rose Bretécher’s acclaimed memoir of the same name and has been adapted into a six-part series by relatively new writer Kirstie Swain,

She said: ’I’ve always been an obsessive worrier and over-thinker…or maybe it's the other way round. It runs through me like a stick of rock. While I don't suffer from Rose’s exact condition, Pure resonated so deeply with me because I can absolutely relate to the experience of being an outer calm and an inner cyclone.

And she added that the show ‘embodies everything I want to say as a woman and as a writer and it gives voice to the often silent issue of mental health’.

Filming on the hour-long episodes will begin early next year to air on Channel 4 later in 2018, and casting has not yet been announced. 

Bretécher said: ‘When I wrote my memoir, my mental health condition was virtually unheard of, and my thoughts were deeply taboo. Now, to collaborate on its adaptation with such a talented, diligent, witty team, is an extraordinary validation and privilege. 

‘As my story is reimagined on-screen, we have a unique opportunity to reach untold thousands of people who have lived for years, as I did, in secrecy and shame. To humanise their darkest experiences, to empower them to change, and to give them new hope.’

The series was commissioned from independent production house Drama Republic by Beth Willis, head of drama at Channel 4.

Published: 6 Jul 2017