'Pistol': New look at Danny Boyle's Sex Pistols drama as UK air date confirmed

Pistol, the Danny Boyle-directed drama about Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones, will launch on Disney+ in the UK from Tuesday, 31 May, it has been announced.

The streaming service has also released new photos from the show, showing the actors playing the iconic punk band. Formed in 1975, the punk band were a sensation that scandalised the British music scene with hits such as God Save The Queen and Anarchy in the UK. They split in 1978 after releasing one album, and bassist Sid Vicious died the following year.

The new six-part series, written and created by regular Baz Luhrmann collaborator Craig Pearce (Moulin Rouge!, The Great Gatsby), is based on a 2016 memoir by Jones titled Lonely Boy: Tales From A Sex Pistol, and was recently the subject of a court case.

Read more: Why the Sex Pistols were fired by their label

Johnny Rotten, the group’s former frontman — real name John Lydon — was sued by the band’s drummer Paul Cook and guitarist Steve Jones in order to allow their music to be used in the TV drama.

Rotten lost the case, when Judge Sir Anthony Mann found Cook and Jones were entitled to invoke “majority voting rules” against Rotten in relation to the use of Sex Pistols material in the series under the terms of a band member agreement (BMA).

Read more: Lydon calls Sex Pistols fame 'hell on earth'

Rotten had previously slated the show calling it the 'most disrespectful s*** I’ve ever had to endure'.

Pistol, which will debut in the UK on Disney's streaming service under the age-gated Star banner, will air on the same date as it hits Hulu in the US.

It stars Toby Wallace as Steve Jones, Jacob Slater as Paul Cook, Anson Boon as John Lydon, Christian Lees as Glen Matlock, Louis Partridge as Sid Vicious, Sydney Chandler as Chrissie Hynde, Talulah Riley as Vivienne Westwood, Maisie Williams as punk icon Jordan, Emma Appleton as Nancy Spungen and Thomas Brodie-Sangster as Malcolm McLaren.

Here's the synopsis for the show: “Pistol” is a six-episode limited series about a rock and roll revolution. The furious, raging storm at the centre of this revolution are the Sex Pistols - and at the centre of this series is Sex Pistols’ founding member and guitarist, Steve Jones.

Jones’ hilarious, emotional and at times heart-breaking journey guides us through a kaleidoscopic telling of three of the most epic, chaotic and mucus-spattered years in the history of music. Based on Jones’ memoir Lonely Boy: Tales from a Sex Pistol, this is the story of a band of spotty, noisy, working-class kids with “no future,” who shook the boring, corrupt Establishment to its core, threatened to bring down the government and changed music and culture forever.

Pistol will premiere exclusively on Disney+ in the UK and Ireland on Tuesday 31 May.

Watch: John Lydon unmasked on The Masked Singer