The Slits’ Viv Albertine’s Memoirs Optioned For TV Series

The Slits’ former guitarist Viv Albertine’s memoirs have been optioned for a limited TV series. The team at Number 9 Films, who made Backbeat, capturing The Beatles‘ early years in Hamburg, will be producing the show.

Albertine was instrumental in the rise in punk music in the 1970s. She was the guitarist in The Slits, whose Dennis Bovell-produced 1979 debut, Cut, is regarded as one of the era’s most seminal releases and has been cited as an influence by artists as diverse as Kurt Cobain to Sleater-Kinney and Massive Attack. More recently, Albertines has written two memoirs – Clothes, Music, Boys released in 2014, and To Throw Away Unopened which was published in 2018.

On the upcoming collaboration with Number 9 films, led by producers Elizabeth Karlsen, Stephen Woolley and Rachael Horovitz, Albertine said, “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!”

Describing Albertine’s wider cultural impact, the producing team explained, “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 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.”

There is no word on casting details or release dates yet for the as-yet untitled show – stay tuned for more information as it comes in.

Listen to the best of The Slits on Apple Music and Spotify.