The Stage

BBC radio puts site-specific Shakespeare on the menu

Published Tuesday 10 February 2009 at 15:50 by Matthew Hemley

A site-specific theatre production which debuted at last year’s Brighton Festival to critical acclaim is to be turned into a radio play for the BBC.

Shakespeare a la Carte originally ran at Pizza Express in Brighton last May, offering audiences the chance to order extracts from Shakespeare plays and watch them performed by actors masquerading as waiters.

BBC Radio 4’s version of the show will be recorded live before customers at a restaurant in Brighton next month and will be broadcast on Easter Monday at 2.15pm.

It will feature the original cast - Jonathan Cullen, Fiona Dunn and Richard Hahlo - who together form the theatre company Hydrocracker.

Hahlo said the company had written two extra characters for the radio production who will “frame the action for those listening to it at home” and added: “It’s good that we will record it live, because what you get, which will work strongly, is big chunks of Shakespeare. Then around that you have the to-ing and fro-ing of these waiters trying to get these speeches organised. There are lots of interesting jokes around catering and Shakespeare, which I hope will still work on the radio.”

The radio adaptation is being made by independent company Sweet Talk Productions.

Meanwhile, Hydrocracker is currently preparing to take Shakespeare a la Carte to Edinburgh this summer and is developing another site-specific production for this year’s Brighton Festival.