BBC announces new theatre shows as part of autumn Culture in Quarantine
© Seamus Ryan and Artwork Muse Creative Communications
The BBC has revealed a raft of arts shows featured in its autumn "Culture in Quarantine" initiative.
As previously reported, the platform plans to broadcast the West End production of Uncle Vanya on BBC Four. The show, starring Peter Wight, Anna Calder-Marshall, Rosalind Eleazar, Roger Allam, Toby Jones, Richard Armitage, Aimee Lou Wood and Dearbhla Molloy (all photographed above) has yet to name a date but is expected to be initially presented in cinemas ahead of a TV premiere before the end of the year.
Hit artist Bryony Kimmings and filmmaker Daisy Asquith will present new piece Opera Mums, which sees a group of single mums create a new opera penned alongside composer Vahan Salorian (Boys Of Paradise), with three days' rehearsal.
Matthew Bourne's The Red Shoes will be broadcast on BBC Two, after its cinematic release scheduled for the end of the month.
Kenith Trodd, Margaret Matheson and Richard Eyre, and directors Mike Leigh, David Hare and Ken Loach will reflect on the legacy of the BBC's Play for Today Scheme, with old classics from the scheme being broadcast on BBC Four across the autumn.
London's Southbank Centre and BBC Radio 3 will collaborate to present a series of concerts and literature performed live at the Thameside venue. BBC Arts will also partner with Sadler's Wells to celebrate the best of British dance coming back to the stage in the late autumn.
Disabled writer and actor Mat Fraser curates a series of ambitious and exciting monologues, all written, directed and performed by disabled people. Fraser said today: "I'm thrilled to be curating this exciting, surprising and revealing series of monologues around the disabled experience for the BBC. Disabled voices have been shut out of mainstream TV drama for too long and this is a chance to showcase some of the wonderful, inventive, funny, dramatic, sexy and sobering potential available.
"We called the series Crip Tales, as the word ‘Crip' has been taken by the disabled community as a self-empowering title since the late '80s, and these are authentic stories and tales from people who identify as Deaf and Disabled people and who are embedded in disabled community."
