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Tony Basgallop, writer of Worried About the Boy, explains why he chose the early-Eighties and Blitz club era as the focus of the one-off drama.

"What was interesting was the idea of where George came from, and where the passions came from, and why he turned up in 1983 on our televisions on Top Of The Pops looking the way he did, with that kind of attitude.

"We really had to bring it down to the human story, and the most interesting part of his human story was the period before Culture Club, the Blitz days and how the whole New Romantic look came about."

Tony, writer and creator of hit television series Hotel Babylon, sums up the story of the 90-minute drama.

"It's really of George, a 19-year-old boy, leaving home and moving to a squat in London where he meets a load of like-minded fashionable people.

"They go to the Blitz where they become well-known faces, and it's about George coming to terms with his sexuality and his place in the world, and the events that led to him forming Culture Club.

"It's a coming-of-age story, really, and it leads us up to 1982 when the big moment happened – when he went on Top Of The Pops for the first time and everyone was exposed to the wonders of Boy George. And it's about the romances and heartaches he had as a 19-year-old boy."

With so much written and recorded about Boy George, how do you start pulling together the story, and what do you focus on? Tony reveals, "The starting point is reading absolutely everything you can, talking to anyone you can, getting all the information and getting to know the person involved, finding an angle on them as well.

Delving into the decade that spawned the New Romantics, synth-pop and eccentric fashion, Tony set about researching George, using what was in the public domain. He lists some of the sources as "Books on fashion, the whole New Romantic look, and lots of old NME articles, old archive stuff from the Eighties with the band, first interviews. It's really interesting to read those because you can hear George's voice through them, and the humour that he had in those days, the way he handled the interview – it's amazing."

As it was so distinctive, getting George's "voice" right in the drama was one of the challenges for Tony, but it was something he feels he has accomplished.

"It took a little while to get the hang of it because he is very funny, and he's very defensive in his humour, so when he's challenged he comes back with a one-liner.

"But you get there in the end. The more you get to know the character from all the research, the more you hear their voice. I think it's pretty spot on."

Worried About The Boy includes many scenes in London's Blitz Club, the venue that played host to some of the biggest names in the New Romantic movement, and which is credited as where it began.

The club, hosted by Steve Strange (played by Marc Warren), provided Tony with one of the biggest surprises of his research.

He says: "The thing I found most interesting was how small the Blitz club was. And how the maximum capacity was something like 350.

"I've always been led to believe that the Blitz was this huge place where everybody who had baggy trousers went to on a Tuesday night, but it was a lot more underground than I thought it was. There weren't that many people in the early days walking around dressed in these pirate shirts and balloon trousers.

"It was all influenced by David Bowie as well, which was something I wasn't aware of when I started the research. The Blitz and Steve Strange promoting all these club nights, it was really a David Bowie appreciation society."

Whilst the story is very much focused on the early years of the band, there are some flash-forward scenes to 1986 which Tony describes as "one of the lowest points in George's life".

It was a piece of Boy George's story that Tony felt should be included in the drama in order to give a rounded picture of the star.

"1986 is such a huge turning point in his life and his career, getting over a drug addiction was such a big thing for him. It just seemed to fit.

"We know where he ends up, and it's nice to remind the audience of that whilst we're telling the story that they don't know, about this young guy becoming famous. This is what happens when you get a bit too famous for your own good – it was a part of the story that I really wanted to tell."

Boy George has been a cultural icon for three decades and still has the capacity to made front page news.

As Tony says: "I think you could make another film about Boy George's life from 1986 to present day very easily."

Does he think this drama will lead to people seeing the star in a different light?

"When you're writing a character in a 90-minute drama you want the audience to like that person. Personally, I've always been interested in the life of Boy George, because he's larger than life.

"He's one of those great British eccentrics and there aren't that many of them – and when they come along we should enjoy them for what they are. Even if they've made mistakes, the mistakes are what make the person, in a sense."