The Stage

Marshall and James to star in new BBC4 medieval drama

Published Friday 22 February 2008 at 16:10 by Matthew Hemley

BBC4 is to launch a season of programmes about the medieval era that will include a drama featuring Kris Marshall and Geraldine James.

Called Heist, the drama will will see Marshall and James play villains trying to break into Westminster Abbey to steal the king’s treasure. It will be shown alongside several programmes that take a look at the medieval period, including one fronted by Stephen Fry about the beginning of the print industry.

The season follows on from BBC4’s highly successful Edwardian strand last year, which featured Jessie Wallace as music hall legend Marie Lloyd in the drama Miss Marie Lloyd - Queen of the Music Hall.

BBC4 controller Janice Hadlow said: “Last year our successful Edwardians season suggested just how many aspects of modern life took their origins from the Edwardian era. This time we’re trying to do something quite different.

“What we’re hoping to do with this season is get people to look again at a time which is remote but also fascinating, rich and strange.”

As part of its winter and spring line up for 2008, BBC4 has also unveiled Sacred Music, a series about classical music hosted by actor and former chorister Simon Russell Beale. BBC4 said the programme is the “first British television series to explore this period of music history in depth”.

The channel will also screen a season of dramas telling the stories of some of the UK’s best known comedians.

As previously revealed by The Stage, this will include dramas on Frankie Howerd, starring David Walliams, and Hughie Green, who will be played by Trevor Eve.

Jason Isaacs and Phil Davis will play Harry H Corbett and Wilfrid Brambell in The Curse of Steptoe, about the stars of Steptoe and Son, and Ken Stott and Maxine Peake will star in Hancock and Joan, about Tony Hancock and his affair with his wife’s best friend.

BBC4 will also broadcast a profile of comedian Marty Feldman.