‘The Almond and the Seahorse’ Filmmaker Celyn Jones to Direct ‘Madfabulous’ (EXCLUSIVE)

variety.com:

Naman Ramachandran Welsh actor, writer and director Celyn Jones has set “Madfabulous” as his next directorial venture. The British indie is based on the true story of Henry Cyril Paget, fifth Marquess of Anglesey, who was once one of the richest men in Britain but died penniless and forgotten at the age of 29 in France. “It’s full of pathos and humanity, it’s very much a character who wants to get the attention of his family who don’t want him and he keeps upping the ante with his spending, his flamboyance and his dancing,” Jones told Variety about the 1890s-set film. “What happens if you are a theatrical, and you are very gender fluid at a time when when people didn’t even know what that was?

And you’ve got all the money in the world to do that. Well, of course, you buy a theater company, you buy every jewel you could get your hands on, you invent the selfie, you do these amazing and fabulous things that are very relatable today, when you look at the digital social media world.” Jones describes Paget as “David Bowie and Marc Bolan rolled into one” and likens the story to “The Favourite,” “Amadeus,” “Marie Antoinette” and “Brewster’s Millions.” Mad As Birds, the company Jones runs alongside Sean Marley and Nicola Pearcey, will produce in partnership with Ffilm Cymru Wales.

Principal photography will commence this summer on Jones’ home island of Anglesey, Wales. “Dylan Thomas, which was our first film at Mad As Birds – “Set Fire to the Stars,” [2014] which I wrote and played Dylan – if that was a black and white punk film about a poet, then we’re about to go disco, and even full technicolor,” Jones said.