Shakespeare anniversary season on Foxtel

Foxtel next month will mark 400 years since the death of William Shakespeare (April 23 1616).

Both Foxtel Arts and the History channel will feature Documentaries and Arts programming. Leo Schofield will present some of the programs from the Globe Theatre in London.

Foxtel Arts will feature performances of classics staged at the Globe from 2007 – 2013 and the second season of Shakespeare Uncovered with a ‘who’s who’ of stars including Ethan Hawke, David Tennant, Joseph Fiennes, Joely Richardson, David Harewood, Kim Cattrall, Hugh Bonneville, Morgan Freeman, Jeremy Irons and director Trevor Nunn.

The Shakespeare Enigma will also air on History.

Foxtel Arts

Romeo and Juliet (2009)
Three Hour Film
Sunday April 3 at 8.30pm
Australian Premiere
Join Arts in April as they celebrate 400 years since the death of William Shakespeare. The prolific playwright will be celebrated Sunday to Wednesday with a recorded live performance from the Globe Theatre, London. Featuring a raft of Royal Shakespeare Company thespians, the performances will showcase the best of Shakespeare’s comedies, tragedies, romance and historical plays.
Kicking of the celebration is the complete Shakespearean play ‘Romeo & Juliet’ in its entirety, filmed at the Globe Theatre London, live. A violent street brawl between their rival families is the prelude to Romeo’s first encounter with Juliet. Despite this, and the fact that Juliet has been promised to another man in marriage, they fall in love. But any plans for their future happiness are cruelly destroyed by renewed violence between the two families – and while the adults remain almost comically preoccupied with their own affairs, among their children a hidden tragedy begins to unfold. With its wonderful combination of lyricism, suspense and dramatic changes of mood, Shakespeare’s heartbreaking tale is one of the greatest of all love stories. Stars Holly Atkins of The Bill and Adetomiva Edun of Merlin.

Othello (2007)
Three Hour Film
Monday April 4 at 8.30pm
Australian Premiere
The republic of Venice employs Othello, a self-made man and a Moor, to defend its overseas territories against the Turks. But for all his military success, Othello remains an outsider in the city, an object of racism, envy and mistrust. As the Turkish threat gathers and Venetian forces are despatched to Cyprus, Iago, a junior officer secretly enraged by his lack of promotion, exploits Othello’s ambiguous position and ingenuous nature, driving him into a passionate and uncontrollable jealousy. With its racing concentrated plot and intense dramatic details, Othello is one of Shakespeare’s most exciting, atmospheric and heartbreaking plays. By introducing to early 17th-century England a black character as complex as Othello, it is also one of his most extraordinary imaginative achievements. Stars Eamon Walker of Chicago Fire and Tim McInnerny from Black Adder as Lord Percy Percy.

Macbeth (2013)
2.5 Hour Special
Tuesday April 5 at 8.30pm
Australian Premiere
When three witches tell Macbeth that he is destined to occupy the throne of Scotland, he and his wife choose to become the instruments of their fate and to kill the first man standing in their path, the virtuous King Duncan. But to maintain his position, Macbeth must keep on killing – first Banquo, his old comrade-in-arms; then, as the atmosphere of guilt and paranoia thickens, anyone who seems to threaten his tyrant’s crown. From its mesmerising first moments to the last fulfilment of the witches’ prophecy, Shakespeare’s gripping account of the profoundest engagement with the forces of evil enthrals the imagination. Stars Samantha Spiro of London Spy and Joseph Millson of Banished.

All’s Well that Ends Well (2011)
2.5 Hour Film
Wednesday April 6 at 8.30pm
Australian Premiere
Helena loves the arrogant Bertram, and when she cures the King of France of his sickness, she claims Bertram as her reward. But her brand-new husband, flying from Helena to join the wars, attaches two obstructive conditions to their marriage – conditions he is sure will never be met. ‘All’s Well That Ends Well’ grinds the romantic against the realistic at every turn and brilliantly reverses all the usual expectations of Shakespearean comedy. And some of Shakespeare’s most inventive language gives life to not just his single-minded heroine and her churlish lover, but a fantastic cast of frauds, cynics, sentimentalists and buffoons. Stars Ellie Piercy of Brothers of War, Colin Hurley of David Copperfield and Janie Dee of London’s Burning.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2013)
Three Hour Film
Sunday April 17 at 8.30pm
Australian Premiere
An enchanted forest charms a disenchanted court. In Athens a daughter’s disobedience forces two lovers to flee to the woods, pursued by the two lovers they rejected. In the woods, amateur actors rehearse a play, while the king of fairies plays tricks and captivates the night. A mischievous Puck with the magical juice of a flower helps love lose its way while the fairy queen falls for an ass; the king and queen of the fairies reconcile; the lovers find each other, return to court and marriage celebrations end in a theatrical dream. Hermia loves Lysander and Helena loves Demetrius – but Demetrius is supposed to be marrying Hermia… When the Duke of Athens tries to enforce the marriage, the lovers take refuge in the woods and wander into the midst of a dispute between the king and queen of the fairies. Shakespeare put some of his most dazzling dramatic poetry at the service of this teasing, glittering, hilarious and amazingly inventive play, whose seriousness is only fleetingly glimpsed beneath its dreamlike surface. Stars Fergal McElherron of Charlie, Huss Garbiya of The Bill and John Light of Father Brown.

The Taming of the Shrew (2013)
Three Hour Film
Monday April 18 at 8.30pm
Australian Premiere
Shakespeare’s most outrageous comedy, ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ introduces one of theatre’s great screwball double- acts, a couple hell-bent on confusing and outwitting each other right up to the play’s equivocal and controversial conclusion. Stars Kate Lamb of Call The Midwife and Leah Whitaker of Whitechapel.

The Tempest (2013)
2.5 Hour Film
Tuesday April 19 at 8.30pm
Australian Premiere
Prospero, Duke of Milan, usurped and exiled by his own brother, holds sway over an enchanted island. He is comforted by his daughter Miranda and served by his spirit Ariel and his deformed slave Caliban. When Prospero raises a storm to wreck this perfidious brother and his confederates on the island, his long contemplated revenge at last seems within reach. Inspired by reports of the first English colonies in the West Indies and imbued with a spirit of magic and the supernatural, ‘The Tempest’ is Shakespeare’s late great masterpiece of forgiveness, generosity and enlightenment. Stars James Garnon of Foyle’s War, Jessie Buckley of War & Peace and Roger Allam of Les Miserable (1985).

Much Ado About Nothing (2011)
Three Hour Film
Wednesday April 20 at 8.30pm
Australian Premiere
Claudio loves Hero and Hero Claudio and nothing seems capable of tearing them apart. Claudio’s friend Benedick loves Beatrice and Beatrice Benedick, but (because neither will admit it) nothing seems capable of bringing them together. Only the intrigues of a resentful prince force Benedick to prove his love for Beatrice – by killing his best friend. Driven along by a romance all the more charming for being unacknowledged, Much Ado About Nothing is a miracle of comic and dramatic suspense and gives us, in the bantering Beatrice and Benedick, two of Shakespeare’s wittiest, most lovable pair of lovers. Stars Charles Edwards of Downtown Abbey and Eve Best of Nurse Jackie.

Shakespeare Uncovered (Season 2):
Ethan Hawke on Macbeth: Tuesday April 5 at 7.30pm.
Romeo & Juliet with Joseph Fiennes: Sunday April 3 at 7.30pm
Othello with David Harewood: Monday April 4 at 7.30pm
Hamlet with David Tennant: Sunday April 10 at 7.30pm.
Shakespeare’s Women with Joley Richardson: Monday April 11 at 7.30pm.
Antony and Cleopatra with Kim Catrall: Tuesday April 12 at 7.30pm
A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Hugh Bonneville: Sunday April 17 at 7.30pm
The Taming of the Shrew with Morgan Freeman: Monday April 18 at 7.30pm
The Tempest with Trevor Nunn: Tuesday April 19 at 7.30pm
The Henrys with Jeremy Irons: Sunday April 24 at 7.30pm

History

The Shakespeare Enigma
One Hour Special
Saturday April 23 at 8.30pm
Australian Premiere
This high-gloss documentary examines a highly controversial topic: Who was William Shakespeare, and did he write the works we associate with his name? Among the most interesting candidates advanced by scholars as the “real” dramatist is Christopher Marlowe, a successful author and secret agent of Queen Elizabeth I. Shakespeare’s first plays weren’t performed until after Marlowe’s early death in 1593 at the age of 29 in a sordid pub brawl in Deptford, by the River Thames, East of London. Until now this has seemed to rule out Marlowe as a candidate for the writer of Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet and King Lear. But in this new documentary, biography and history specialists explore a fascinating and revolutionary thesis: Christopher Marlowe faked his own death to avoid arrest and possible execution by Elizabeth I’s ministers. This freed him to devote his life to literature, using actor-manager William Shakespeare as his straw man drawing on his own life’s experiences for at least some of his subject matter! High-budget re-enactments and shooting on original locations sketch an image of the golden age of Elizabethan theatre, and scholars from various fields weigh in on the question of Shakespeare’s secret.