BBC celebrates 400th anniversary of the publication of Shakespeare’s ‘First Folio’ with ambitious pan-BBC season
01 November marks 400 years since
02 arguably the greatest work of English literature
03 was created, the ‘First Folio’, published seven
04 years after the death of William Shakespeare
05 and without which much of his work would
06 have been lost for future generations to enjoy
07 today.
08 The BBC is celebrating this
09 extraordinary anniversary with an ambitious
10 season of content across TV, Radio, BBC iPlayer
11 & BBC Sounds exploring why, 400 years on,
12 Shakespeare's relevance and influence is as
13 strong as ever. A wealth of programming
14 featuring major actors and leading experts,
15 including new documentaries, performance,
16 music, drama, comedy, news coverage and the
17 best of the BBC archive, as well as special items
18 on flagship BBC shows, will celebrate the man,
19 his world and his timeless writing.
20 Suzy Klein, Head of BBC Arts and
21 Classical TV, says: “Shakespeare lived in a
22 dangerous age of plague, violence, vicious
23 rivalries and political assassinations and his
24 very survival is something of a miracle. His work
25 was almost lost to history, and without the First
26 Folio being published in 1623, eighteen of his
27 greatest plays would have been lost forever.
28 We would have none of those immortal
29 characters such as Cleopatra and Marc
30 Anthony, Macbeth or Malvolio, Prospero and
31 Ariel. Shakespeare changed the way we talk,
32 the words we use, our films, books,
33 catchphrases and memes, the very way we
34 think – and yet we know very little about him.
35 This major new season pieces together the
36 clues from his life and work to reveal the
37 driving forces behind the glover's son from
38 Stratford upon Avon who became the greatest
39 writer that ever lived.”
40 Charlotte Moore, BBC Chief Content
41 Officer, says: “The BBC has a rich history of
42 showcasing Shakespeare and bringing his works
43 alive to successive generations. The 400th
44 anniversary of the publication of the First Folio
45 is an important opportunity to build on this
46 legacy with an ambitious array of programming
47 across the BBC celebrating the genius of our
48 greatest writer. With documentaries,
49 performance, music, drama, comedy and
50 educational content as well as the very best of
51 the BBC’s extraordinary archive, this season
52 demonstrates our commitment to offering
53 audiences programming they wouldn’t find
54 anywhere else.”
55 The centrepiece of the season is a
56 gripping three-part documentary series for BBC
57 Two and iPlayer, Shakespeare: Rise of a
58 Genius, featuring an A-list cast of actors,
59 including Dame Judi Dench, Dame Helen
60 Mirren, Brian Cox, Adrian Lester, Lolita
61 Chakrabarti, Martin Freeman and Jessie
62 Buckley, alongside academics and writers James
63 Shapiro, Jeanette Winterson, Lucy Jago , Jeremy
64 O’Harris and Ewan Fernie - who provide fresh
65 insights into the incredible story of our greatest
66 writer, the place and time he inhabited and the
67 work he produced. The series is made by 72
68 Films (a Fremantle company), the award-
69 winning producers of Rise of the Nazis,
70 Elizabeth’s Secret Agents.
71 Contributing to the series, Dame Judi
72 Dench, says: “His understanding of everything,
73 of love, of anger, of jealousy, of rage,
74 melancholy – who did it better, who has ever
75 done it better? I wish I’d met him, oh I wish I’d
76 met him.”
77 Accompanying the series, BBC Four
78 will feature a star-studded selection of archive
79 performances with specially filmed
80 introductions from David Tennant on
81 Hamlet, Sir Richard Eyre on King
82 Lear, Dame Janet Suzman on Wars of the
83 Roses, Gregory Doran on the Shakespeare Gala
84 from the RSC, Russell T Davies on A
85 Midsummer Night’s Dream, Dame Helen
86 Mirren on As You Like It, Hugh Quarshie on
87 Othello and Steven Berkoff on Hamlet at
88 Elsinore.
89 BBC Four will be showing a number of
90 acclaimed performances of Shakespeare's
91 greatest plays including Hamlet from the Bristol
92 Old Vic featuring rising star Billy Howle in the
93 title role; Henry V from Shakespeare’s Globe
94 with Jamie Parker in the lead role; the
95 RSC’s Henry VI Part 1 with Sir Antony Sher in
96 the role of Falstaff; and the RSC’s Much Ado
97 About Nothing.
98 On BBC Radio 4 – Dame Judi Dench,
99 one of Britain’s foremost Shakespearean actors
100 will be John Wilson’s guest on This Cultural
101 Life. A special edition of Front Row: 1623
102 Review Show will see the panel and guests go
103 back in time to review the music, poems and
104 plays from the year that the First Folio was
105 published. In addition, First Folio, a new semi-
106 fictionalised comic drama tells the story of the
107 creation of the first book of Shakespeare’s
108 plays.
109 Radio 3 will dedicate a day exclusively
110 to music inspired by Shakespeare, while Drama
111 on 3: The Hamlet Season will feature three
112 contemporary dramas based on Hamlet, the
113 Shakespearean play that has been put on the
114 most times around the world.
115 In addition, BBC Teach will publish a
116 collated collection of resources for primary and
117 secondary schools to mark the anniversary,
118 including a new nine-part video animation of
119 Romeo and Juliet for primary schools.
Adapted from: https://www.bbc.com/mediacentre/2023/ shakespeare-first-folio-400-anniversary
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