Big Issue founder John Bird's debut novel optioned for screen adaptation

An award-winning, BAFTA nominated production company has secured the rights to the debut novel by Big Issue founder Lord John Bird.

Titled Do You Sincerely Want to Smash Capitalism and Have a Full Sex Life?, Lord Bird’s first foray into the world of novel writing uses a fictional world full of mythical beings to explore the cruel inequalities of the real world – with stories of his own life woven into the narrative.

Now it has been optioned for a screen adaptation by Genesius Pictures, the production company behind the critically acclaimed film Good Luck To You, Leo Grande, which starred Emma Thompson in the lead role.

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Lord Bird founded the Big Issue in 1991, and has served as a crossbench peer in the House of Lords since 2015. He campaigns for addressing homelessness and poverty, and is calling the government to set up a Ministry of Poverty Prevention, which would centralise all poverty policy into one ministerial department and focus on prevention, rather than emergency.

He calls Do You Sincerely Want to Smash Capitalism and Have a Full Sex Life? a “culmination on [his] life reflections”, adding that it’s a “disastrous book about a disastrous life… and I hope, an equally disastrous film”.

Welcoming the news of the adaptation, John Bird said: “Hegel once said – ‘We learn from history that we do not learn from history.’ Something I profoundly agree with. I was born on the 30th January so when I was trying to prove how I was so important in the world, an early preoccupation, I gathered all of the 30th of Januarys together and that’s how I discovered how important history had been that had flowed through the day of my birth. The book is a culmination of a life’s reflection on such matters and is a disastrous book of a disastrous life. And I hope an equally disastrous film.”

Debbie Gray, managing director of Genesius Pictures, said: “John has lived an extraordinary life which has informed his new novel, charting history and life through a fantastical fictional world of his creation. The story takes us on a whimsical journey that I was gripped by from start to finish, with glimpses of John’s own life experiences, and we can’t wait to help bring the book to life on the big screen.”

Lord Bird previously published an autobiography in 2002, covering his life up to the age of 40. Do You Sincerely Want to Smash Capitalism and Have a Full Sex Life? is his first novel and has been optioned for screen prior to landing a book publishing deal.

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