Post by Queen Mab on Sept 21, 2010 9:38:18 GMT
www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/8014531/The-live-plays-the-thing-in-BBC-Shakespeare-season.html
The BBC is to spend more than £10 million on a season of programmes celebrating the works of William Shakespeare.
The highlight of the season will be a play broadcast live over three hours - one of the BBC's most ambitious drama projects to date. Shakespearean plays were routinely shown live in the 1940s and 1950s, but have not been broadcast in this way for decades.
Five plays will be adapted in total, accompanied by a series of documentaries exploring Shakespeare's life and work.
An A-list cast of actors is promised for the dramas, which will air in 2012 across BBC One, BBC Two and online. After recent attempts to update the Bard for modern audiences - in 2005, several plays were rewritten with modern dialogue under the banner 'Shakespeare Re-Told' - the season will see a return to more traditional interpretations.
Jana Bennett, the corporation's head of television, will announce the £10 million season in a speech later today at an industry forum in central London, saying: "The BBC will be celebrating Shakespeare's work and living legacy as part of 2012, one of the biggest cultural festivals the world has ever staged. Part of the BBC's remit is to celebrate the best of all that is British and that is what uniquely allows us to create such a culturally important and rewarding season."
The commission follows the success of BBC Two's Hamlet adaptation, a reworking of the Royal Shakespeare Company production starring David Tennant. It was broadcast on Boxing Day and won nearly a million viewers. The format will be repeated in the New Year when BBC Four presents Patrick Stewart in the RSC's production of Macbeth.
The BBC tackled live television earlier this year in a 30-minute episode of EastEnders. It remains the most-viewed television programme of 2010, attracting an audience of 16.6 million. Staging a Shakespearean play will present greater challenges.
A BBC insider said: "Everyone is incredibly excited about this. Although the BBC has screened Shakespeare plays over the years, there has never been an entire season devoted to his work. The live broadcast has the potential to be one of the biggest things on television in 2012."
The first Shakespeare broadcast on the BBC was an 11-minute scene from As You Like It, aired in 1937. Plays were transmitted live in the 1940s and 1950s, but were not preserved in the archives.
In 1978, the BBC began adapting all 36 of the First Folio plays for television. The project ran until 1985 and produced some memorable performances, including Derek Jacobi as Hamlet, Anthony Quayle as Falstaff in Henry IV Part I, John Cleese as Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew and Sir John Gielgud as John of Gaunt in Richard II.
In 2005, the BBC broadcast a Shakespeare Re-Told series in which plays were relocated to the present day, including an adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing set in a local television studio with Beatrice and Benedick as bickering news presenters. They met with mixed reviews.
The BBC is to spend more than £10 million on a season of programmes celebrating the works of William Shakespeare.
The highlight of the season will be a play broadcast live over three hours - one of the BBC's most ambitious drama projects to date. Shakespearean plays were routinely shown live in the 1940s and 1950s, but have not been broadcast in this way for decades.
Five plays will be adapted in total, accompanied by a series of documentaries exploring Shakespeare's life and work.
An A-list cast of actors is promised for the dramas, which will air in 2012 across BBC One, BBC Two and online. After recent attempts to update the Bard for modern audiences - in 2005, several plays were rewritten with modern dialogue under the banner 'Shakespeare Re-Told' - the season will see a return to more traditional interpretations.
Jana Bennett, the corporation's head of television, will announce the £10 million season in a speech later today at an industry forum in central London, saying: "The BBC will be celebrating Shakespeare's work and living legacy as part of 2012, one of the biggest cultural festivals the world has ever staged. Part of the BBC's remit is to celebrate the best of all that is British and that is what uniquely allows us to create such a culturally important and rewarding season."
The commission follows the success of BBC Two's Hamlet adaptation, a reworking of the Royal Shakespeare Company production starring David Tennant. It was broadcast on Boxing Day and won nearly a million viewers. The format will be repeated in the New Year when BBC Four presents Patrick Stewart in the RSC's production of Macbeth.
The BBC tackled live television earlier this year in a 30-minute episode of EastEnders. It remains the most-viewed television programme of 2010, attracting an audience of 16.6 million. Staging a Shakespearean play will present greater challenges.
A BBC insider said: "Everyone is incredibly excited about this. Although the BBC has screened Shakespeare plays over the years, there has never been an entire season devoted to his work. The live broadcast has the potential to be one of the biggest things on television in 2012."
The first Shakespeare broadcast on the BBC was an 11-minute scene from As You Like It, aired in 1937. Plays were transmitted live in the 1940s and 1950s, but were not preserved in the archives.
In 1978, the BBC began adapting all 36 of the First Folio plays for television. The project ran until 1985 and produced some memorable performances, including Derek Jacobi as Hamlet, Anthony Quayle as Falstaff in Henry IV Part I, John Cleese as Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew and Sir John Gielgud as John of Gaunt in Richard II.
In 2005, the BBC broadcast a Shakespeare Re-Told series in which plays were relocated to the present day, including an adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing set in a local television studio with Beatrice and Benedick as bickering news presenters. They met with mixed reviews.
