text: Russell had been interested in Byron and Shelley's meeting for a decade. He said "About 10 years ago, Robert Powell, the actor, approached me with a script covering the same time span and events. But we couldn't raise the money. I think it was a little too poetic and not as scary as it might have been." Russell say Gothic as "a sort of black comedy; some of the others have been slightly more serious. This has deliberate comic overtones - sort of a satire."
  "I felt pretty positive about the story when it was sent to me," said Russell. "It was extremely visual, which attracted me. And the use of laudanum gave me a springboard for my ideas."
  "I made the film because I was offered a script," said Russell later. "Everything's there (in the film). They (the main characters) were responsible for publicizing the gothic experience. It's a watershed: From that meeting, everything seemed to go against them."
  The film was announced in December 1985. Ken Russell had planned to make a version of Moll Flanders but that fell through. The film was a co production between America's Atlantic Entertainment Group and Britain's Virgin Films. The budget was around two million pounds.
  Filming
  Filming started in June 1986 and wound up in August. It took place at Hertfordshire, mostly in and around the Palladian mansion Wrotham Park, with a week's shooting in the Lake's District.