John Simm To Play Vincent Van Gogh

John Simm (Life on Mars, State of Play, Sex Traffic) will star as Vincent Van Gogh in a one-off arts drama to be broadcast on Channel 4 next year. The Yellow House, made by talkbackThames, tells the moving human story behind a pair of the most influential and explosive housemates in art history – Vincent Van Gogh (Simm) and Paul Gauguin (John Lynch, Bleak House).

During November and December 1888, Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin shared a home; ‘The Yellow House’, in Arles, southern France. Approaching middle age and still flat broke, both men abandon respectability, family and friends to commit themselves utterly to painting.

Their last hope is each other - if only they can get along: Gauguin rightly fears Van Gogh is on the brink of a psychological crisis; Van Gogh claims Gauguin puts too much salt in the stew.

They drink, they argue, they whore, but most of all, they paint together, sharing this ferocious obsession.

During these two months they produce a raft of paintings that are now acknowledged as masterpieces of modern art, but at what personal cost? Can their friendship, the last chance for either of them have of any kind of relationship, survive this intensity?

The Yellow House co-stars a distinguished cast from stage and screen including; Sarah Smart (Jane Hall, At Home with the Braithwaites) as Rachel; Deborah Findlay (Vanity Fair, Truly Madly Deeply) as Madame Roulin; Scott Handy (The Haunted Airman, Henry VIII), as Theo Van Gogh and Clive Russell (Festival, Ladies in Lavender, Auf Wiedersehn Pet) as Monsieur Roulin.

The Yellow House is written by Simon Bent and produced and directed by Chris Durlacher (The Haunted Airman, EMMY award-winning George Orwell - A Life in Pictures) with Charles Furneaux as executive producer for talkbackTHAMES.

Commissioned for Channel 4 by Jan Younghusband (commissioning editor, arts and performance).