BBC's Drama of the Week is Hamlet.

Just a quick note to say that Radio 4's Drama of the Week podcast is episode one of Hamlet.

You can download it here.

Hopefully the other four episodes will go up too, but they've been known to only include a single installment of series.

Benedict Cumberbatch to play Hamlet.

GUARDIAN: US to stop bulk collection of phone records #TomorrowsPapersToday #BBCPapers pic.twitter.com/oen5gSH0xJ
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) March 25, 2014

I'll add a link to The Guardian's article when it's republished. It was up earlier thanks to an embargo jump.

Updated  26/03/2014  Here's a link to The Guardian's article now that it's been republished.

Radio 4's Hamlet will be in the Afternoon Drama slot.

Genuinely surprised. Here is Hamlet spread across the whole week in the prestigious 2:15pm slot in five parts (an act per day?) starting next Monday 24th March for five days, total duration about three and three-quarter hours which in audio terms is a mass of airtime allowing space for plenty of the play's textual real estate. For comparison, this is just shorter than the Branagh "full text" film and longer than his Renaissance Theatre production broadcast in 1992.

The programme page is here, with full cast list and clips of Jamie Parker talking about the role.  And here.

Notice that it's not listed as being part of the Afternoon Drama strand, which usually features new drama by living writers.  Will this affect its chances of being a downloadable podcast in the Drama of the Week?

Expect a review here in due course, then.

Shakespeare at the BBC: More of The Hollow Crown?

At Illuminations, sorry @illuminations, noticed a good case of burying the headline in a Michael Billington column about BBC radio's adaptation of O What A Lovely War. Towards the end he addresses some of my usual complaints about the lack of theatre on television before smuggling what feels like a pretty impressive leak:

"TV, on the other hand, does little to acknowledge the existence of theatre. You might get the occasional news report if there is a startling controversy or the opening of a big musical. The Review Show has been shunted on to a little-seen monthly Sunday-evening slot on BBC4. But, although I'm told there is a second season of Shakespeare history plays being planned for BBC2, it is rare to find a play from the theatrical canon being televised. And none of the big companies, such as the National or the RSC, has established the kind of link with television that they have with cinemas that allows their work to be seen not just around the UK but across the world."

As @illuminations says:

Can BBC2 be planning an adaptation of 3 Henry VIs and Richard III? The Hollow Crown follow-up? @billicritic http://t.co/ww2RpzFKyo
— Illuminations (@Illuminations) March 14, 2014

Let's hope so. The first series did well in international sales, especially in the US where it got huge press, certainly more than it received here. As with the other pieces, it has the perfect shape for a series of films, brilliant parts not least John of Arc and ends with Richard III as the finale. The Jane Howell version for the BBC Shakespeare filmed against a venture playground backdrop with hobby horses with Brenda Blethyn as Joan and Ron Cook as Richard is still a high televisual watermark for this material (and only appearance I think for Henry VI), but it is a very stylised piece and it'd be interesting to finally see it with massive casts and no double (even though as the recent Globe productions and the Howell version have shown that can create interesting thematic resonances).

Perhaps my old plan to do the whole of Shakespeare in this format doesn't look so silly after all. Um.

Updated  25/03/2013  The Hollow Crown Season Two commissioned.

New Hamlet for Radio 4.

The press release for BBC's new Radio 4 awareness drive, the clunkily titled "Character Invasion" does include this interesting nugget:

"Beginning with a new production of Hamlet - often thought of as the definitive character portrayal - starring History Boy Jamie Parker and broadcast over five afternoons in the week leading up to Character Invasion Day"

After seeing Parker in the Globe Henry V, I hoped he'd appear in Hamlet at some point and here he is, albeit on the radio, though it's not clear which slot. Ideally it'll be afternoon drama since it probably needs all of those minutes, but I suspect it'll be a fifteen minute daily broadcast instead. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern unlikely, Fortinbras absent?  In other news, Radio 4 broadcasts Shakespeare.  That's the real surprise.