Satisfaction! Mick spills the beans for new ‘Crown’ series

MANY fans of The Rolling Stones were delighted when it was revealed the producers of The Crown were making a similarly styled TV drama about the band’s rise to global fame. But could there be trouble ahead?

Its scriptwriter Nick Hornby, author of novels Fever Pitch and High Fidelity, confesses he’s already preparing for a backlash from the audience over inaccuracies similar to that faced by the Netflix royal drama.

‘I’m writing a 16-part drama series about The Rolling Stones from 1963 to 1974,’ he confirms.

‘I think both with The Crown and with this, you have to have dramatic scenes involving dialogue which you can only guess at. That’s all [The Crown creator] Peter Morgan could do.

‘You think, well, this was happening then, and to these people, and now I’m going to put them in a room and have them talk about it.

‘So there are parameters to what you’re imagining — it’s rooted in the reality of the situation — and with The Stones it’s the same thing.’

Hornby, however, has one crucial advantage: guidance from the band members themselves, including Sir Mick Jagger, 77.

Speaking about the project for the first time this week, Hornby adds: ‘I’ve loved the research. I talk to the lead singer of the band quite regularly and that’s been completely fascinating.

‘Usually with these projects, if they don’t go anywhere, you’re left with no memories at all apart from a meeting in a windowless room somewhere in London or California. But this one has been a lot of things that I won’t forget.’

SIR Mick’s cooperation is unusual. He has previously been so reluctant to revisit his past that he once returned a £1 million advance to the publisher Lord Weidenfeld for his memoir because his drafts were deemed ‘insufficiently scandalous’.

As well as talking to Hornby, he and his band mates have given permission for the series — produced by Left Bank Pictures and commissioned by FX, the Disney-owned TV channel — to feature tracks from their albums Sticky Fingers and Exile On Main Street.