The Stage

BBC to screen Shakespeare season

Published Tuesday 25 January 2005 at 14:45 by Liz Thomas

Leading television writers including Bafta Award-winner Peter Bowker and North Square creator Peter Moffat have been enlisted by the BBC as part of a large scale initiative aiming to bring Shakespeare to a wider audience.

Later this year the Corporation will be screening four programmes inspired by A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado About Nothing and Macbeth but not featuring the actual text. Influenced by the success of last year’s adaptations of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the 90-minute films place Shakespeare’s plays into a contemporary context.

Bowker sets A Midsummer Night’s Dream over a weekend in a holiday park, Moffat’s Macbeth is transposed to the tense world of a top restaurant. Former actor and Cold Feet scriptwriter David Nicholls’ version of Much Ado About Nothing places Beatrice and Benedict as co-presenters of an early evening regional news programme while Sally Wainwright - creator of At Home With The Braithwaites - tells the tale of a female opposition MP instructed to find herself a husband to make her more electable in an adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew.

The Corporation is also linking up with the Shakespeare Schools Festival to produce 1 Night of Shakespeare, a UK-wide event on July 3 involving 10,000 schoolchildren and teachers producing and directing their own interpretations of abridged versions of 13 plays from the bard’s canon including Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, Othello, The Merchant of Venice, Hamlet and The Tempest.

Festival director Chris Grace said: “I was hugely excited when the BBC invited SSF to stage a one-off historic event of this scale. Each of the 100 theatres involved across the country will stage four different half hour productions from different schools.”

BBC Drama and BBC Talent are working closely with the SSF and teachers will be offered training on how to direct Shakespeare on stage, while the National Youth Theatre, Scottish Youth Theatre, National Youth Theatre of Wales and Ulster Association of Youth Drama will provide workshops for pupils.

Controller of drama commissioning Jane Tranter said she was thrilled by the collaboration. The move comes at a time when the Corporation is keen to prove its public service credentials before the renewal of its ten year charter in 2006.