Festival highlights
Highlights of the BBC's Shakespeare Day Live.
Published: 18 April 2016
Richard II
RSC
David Tennant stars as the doomed Richard II in Gregory Doran’s directed and critically acclaimed Royal Shakespeare Company production from 2013, available for the first time online across the world.
Hay Festival Talking About Shakespeare
A collection of short films from the world’s leading actors and academics, playwrights and directors, poets and novelists, including Stephen Fry, Germaine Greer and Dame Judi Dench, exploring Shakespeare, his works and his legacy, celebrating Shakespeare’s contemporary resonance and giving an insight into the work of the greatest writer with a global perspective.
Shakespeare on Stage, Screen and Elsewhere, with Ian McKellen
BFI
Sir Ian McKellen shares his unique insights into the problems and joys of interpreting Shakespeare for the theatre, television, radio and cinema.
Being Hamlet
BBC
Two of the greatest contemporary Hamlets, Simon Russell Beale and Adrian Lester discuss this most celebrated and challenging of roles. Their discussion of the Prince of Denmark fittingly takes place on Danish soil in the elegant surroundings of the ambassador’s residence in London. From Gielgud to Branagh, Olivier to Plummer, they explore the rich variety of approaches to a role to which so many actors aspire.
The Works
Set on a Peckham council estate, this short film, written and directed by Elliot Barnes Worrell celebrates Shakespeare’s timeless themes with a cast headed by Ralph Fiennes. Using only the words of Shakespeare, The Works explores the vast complexities that exist within a community of young Londoners who refuse to be defined by their circumstances.
