Shakespeare at the BBC...bringing to a wider audience
lyra
BBC to screen Shakespeare season
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 June 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.
Tuesday 25 January 2005 02:45 PM
External links
1 Night of Shakespeare <http://www.bbc.co.uk/talent/shakespeare/>
BBC <http://www.bbc.co.uk>
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http://www.thestage.co.uk/news/newsstory.php/6224
Tad Davis
"lyra" <mountai...@RockAthens.com> wrote (quoting Liz Thomas):
> ... Moffat's Macbeth is transposed to the tense world of a top
> restaurant. ...
Hmmm ... sorta like "Scotland, PA"?
Yeah, OK, so it wasn't a TOP restaurant ...
--
Tad Davis
tadd...@ucwphilly.rr.com