Theatre News

Benedict Cumberbatch, Helen Mirren and more join Shakespeare Live! line up

David Tennant hosts the live TV broadcast on 23 April

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11 April 2016

Further guests have been announced for the line up of Shakespeare Live! From The RSC, a TV broadcast from Stratford-upon-Avon on 23 April marking 400 years since the death of William Shakespeare.

Benedict Cumberbatch, recently seen in the title role in Hamlet at the Barbican, joins the production alongside Tim Minchin, Helen Mirren, Harriet Walter and Anne-Marie Duff.

Henry Goodman and Rufus Hound will perform a rendition of "Brush Up Your Shakespeare" from the musical Kiss Me Kate

Other performers will include Rory Kinnear, David Suchet, Simon Russell Beale, Roger Allam, Antony Sher, John Lithgow, Alexandra Gilbreath, Pippa Nixon and the cast of Horrible Histories.

The new additions join the previously announced host David Tennant as well as Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Joseph Fiennes, Meera Syal and Paapa Essiedu.

The performance will be broadcast live from the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in front of an invited audience including the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, on BBC Two at 8.30pm on 23 April.

Assembled and directed by RSC artistic director Gregory Doran, the evening will also include musical performances from the likes of Gregory Porter, Rufus Wainwright, The Shires, the Orchestra of the Swan and the Midlands Youth Jazz Orchestra.

Shakespeare Live! From The RSC is part of the BBC Shakespeare Festival 2016 and will be screened live to 368 cinemas in the UK and Europe.