Shakespeare Retold

The four cutting-edge productions in this collection bring Shakespeare alive for a 21st century audience. Macbeth is the chef in a three-star restaurant, slicing apart his celebrity boss, Duncan. Beatrice and Benedick are rival co-anchors on a nightly newscast whose open hostility masks passion of a different kind. Titania and Bottom carouse together in a tawdry theme resort called Dream Park. And the eccentric aristocrat Petruchio sets out to tame the conservative MP Kate in a politically incorrect marriage of convenience. Playful, cunning and passionate, these adaptations breathe new life into four classic plays, perfectly complimenting the great BBC Shakespeare tradition.

Much Ado About Nothing
When the bickering between broadcasters Beatrice and Benedick gets too much to take, their colleagues at South West TV come up with a cunning plan to shut the pair up. Meanwhile, lovely weathergirl Hero and dashing reporter Claude are a match made in heaven - but does everyone want to see them so happy?

MacBeth
Top chef Joe Macbeth has worked hard to make Duncan Docherty's restaurant a success. So, when he's told it'll all be his one day, what's to stop him taking it now?

The Taming of the Shrew
Katherine Minola is a succesful politician, tipped for the leadership of her party. The only problem is, her awful temper has left her a 38 year old singleton, and everyone, from her party chairman to her sister, wants her to get married. Is passionate eccentric Petruchio the answer to her prayers?

A Midsummer Night's Dream
Theo and Polly have come to Dream Park to celebrate their daughter Hermia's engagement. But the course of true love never did run smooth, and the night ahead holds revelations, fairies, transformations and plenty of love juice.

 

 

Much Ado About Nothing
When Wessex Tonight newsreader Keith has a heart attack, station boss Leonard (Martin Jarvis) knows the perfect replacement - suave ladies' man Benedick (Damian Lewis). The only trouble is, his other on-screen star Beatrice (Sarah Parish) can't stand him, thanks to an unhappy love affair between the two years ago.

Meanwhile, Leonard's beautiful daughter Hero (Billie Piper) is making waves as a weathergirl, not least with dashing young sports reporter Claude (Tom Ellis). The two become an item, with Leonard's blessing. But creepy editor Don Reid (Derek Riddell) developed a huge crush on her after the pair slept together once, and just can't leave her alone.

At a fancy dress party arranged to celebrate Benedick's arrival, Benedick and Claude both dress as knights in armour. This leads to Beatrice telling Benedick exactly what she thinks of him, believing him to be Claude! Elsewhere, Don overhears Hero admit that she only slept with him because she felt sorry for him. The party is rounded off when Claude proposes to Hero.

Back in the newsroom, the friction between Beatrice and Benedick is causing more than sparks on screen. It's becoming a problem - one that the rest of the newsroom crew decide to solve by making Beatrice and Benedick fall in love with one another. They quickly start dropping hints where the two of them can overhear.

On the night before Hero's wedding, Benedick reads a poem to Beatrice and something nearly, but not quite, happens between them. Meanwhile, Don tricks Claude into believing that Hero has been unfaithful to him. At the wedding the next day he rejects her, wrecking the ceremony. Left in the church together, Beatrice and Benedick finally kiss - then Beatrice demands Benedick sort out Claude.

As Benedick returns to the reception hotel, a security guard takes him aside and reveals how Don had tricked Claude. Inside, he tells Claude, who is aghast. Just then, Hero rushes in and confronts Don, demanding to know why he's trying to ruin her life. Don pushes her away - as she falls, she cracks her head and passes out.

In the hospital, Hero lies in a coma, and all fear for her life. Miraculously, she finally wakes, to Claude's intense relief.

Flash forward to the future, and Claude is still waiting for Hero to take him back. Beatrice and Benedick on the other hand, are just about to get married.

Macbeth
Career chef Joe Macbeth is passionate about food. He runs Duncan Docherty's kitchen, famed for down-to-earth meat dishes that have made Docherty's restaurant famous. His kitchen crew love him, but they always remember that he's the boss. His wife Ella is the perfect maitre d', making a meal at Docherty's an experience to remember.

Returning from a late drink, Joe and best mate Billy run into three mysterious binmen, who make some prophecies for the two of them. The restaurant, they say, will gain a third Michellin star. What's more, one day it will all belong to Joe. Eagerly asking about himself, Billy is told that he won't get anything of the restaurant, but his son will.

Back at Docherty's, Joe and Billy are met by Duncan, who tells them that the restaurant has been awarded a three Michelin star rating. The celebrations are suddenly soured for Joe when Duncan mentions leaving the restaurant to his son, Malcolm, a mediocre chef at best.

Later, Ella and Joe discuss the turn of events. It's never said outright, but by the end of the night they have decided to murder Duncan when he stays at the restaurant that evening, bringing about the binmen's prophecy that Joe will get it.

The next evening, Ella has arranges everything to give the two of them an alibi, but Joe is having doubts. To push him into it, she talks about the baby they had together, and lost. Joe does the deed, but cannot go back in to finish off the alibi, so Ella does it for him - stabbing Duncan's corpse with a knife bearing the fingerprints of a casual washer-up.

After Duncan's body is discovered the next day, Ella and Joe give a tearful press conference and speak to the police. Only Billy notices that their expressions of grief are very very similar - as if they'd rehearsed them together. Meanwhile Johnny Boy, one of the other cooks, is nervous - he has done time for stabbing and thinks the police will come for him.

A few weeks later, and Joe and Ella are feeling the strain of the guilt. Joe hallucinates blood everywhere, while Ella constantly washes her hands. Driven half-mad with guilt, Joe meets with the binmen again, and asks about Billy once more. They repeat their earlier prophecy, and tell him to watch out for the chief waiter, Peter Macduff. As they leave, they tell him pigs will fly before anything happens to Joe.

Terrified that Billy will find him out, Joe forces Johnny Boy to murder him, but hallucinates his corpse sitting at the table at a breakfast meeting and freaks out. He and Ella are falling apart - driven by fear Joe has Macduff's family killed, while Ella can take no more and jumps to her death.

In a final showdown, Joe faces Peter Macduff in the kitchen. Believing nothing can harm him, Joe is cocky, but then he hears the noise of police helicopters. Pigs are flying, and Macduff stabs Macbeth to death.

The Taming of the Shrew
Katherine Minola is a successful, outspoken politician, tipped for the leadership of her party. The only problem is her appalling temper. It terrifies everyone around her, including her hapless parlimentary aide Tim Agnew. And it's kept her a single virgin for the whole of her 38 years.

Her sister, Bianca, couldn't be more different. A glamorous, jet-setting model, she has men falling at her feet. When she rejects her agent, Harry Kavanagh, for sexy Italian lad Lucentio, he's left heartbroken. He even begs her to marry him - to which she replies that she'll only get married when her sister does.

She means never, but Harry's desparate enough to cling onto any hope, no matter how tiny. So when his impulsive, eccentric, cash-strapped friend Petruchio arrives unexpectedly and declares his intention to marry someone rich, it looks like the answer to his prayers.

Told about Kate, Petruchio insists on meeting her, despite being told she's agressive, ugly and rude. When he actually sees her, storming out of a party thrown by her sister, he decides he has to have her. This time, Kate turns down his proposal of marriage. Over the next few weeks his relentless wooing - plus the revelation that he's an Earl - win her round.

Petruchio has a shock for Kate at the wedding, turning up in high heels, makeup and miniskirt. Through force of will he pushes through the ceremony, then immediately drags Kate away for their honeymoon, ignoring the reception. The only thing he does stop to do is phone Harry, who is stricken as Bianca still won't marry him, and invite him to come along. Kate, meanwhile, has phoned Tim Agnew to pull out of the party leadership race.

At their honeymoon villa in Italy, Petruchio sets about breaking his sulking, angry wife's spirit. First he traps her by letting down the tyres on the car and hiding Kate's phone and clothes, then he keeps her from sleeping and starves her of food and sex. When Harry arrives, Kate's in a terrible state. The two talk, and Kate gets a better understanding of her unstable, immature, but loving husband. With a provocative comment, she shows she's given in to Petruchio, and the two end up in bed together.

Back in the UK, Kate finds herself the leader of her party - Tim Agnew ignored her instructions, and having an eccentric aristocrat husband has done her no harm at all. She and Petruchio have reached a balance with one another - each respects and obeys the other. Luckily so, as Kate's pregnant with triplets, and still has an election campaign to run!

It's underlined just how balanced their relationship is when Bianca's attempt to force Lucentio into signing a pre-nuptual agreement leads to a breakup. Bianca is supported by Mrs Minola, now engaged to Harry, but not by her sister. In an impassioned speech, Kate declares that wives should obey their husbands, and if Bianca needs a pre-nuptial agreement, she shouldn't be getting married at all.

A Midsummer Night's Dream
In the woods of Dream Park holiday centre, Titania (Sharon Small) and Oberon (Lennie James), King and Queen of the Fairies, have had an argument, and Titania has stormed off in a sulk. Oberon is furious - he's got a marriage to save and nuptials to bless, and only mischevious hobgoblin Puck (Dean Lennox Kelly) to help him do it.

Meanwhile, long-married couple Polly (Imelda Staunton) and Theo (Bill Paterson) are arriving at Dream Park for a weekend celebrating their daughter Hermia's (Zoe Tapper) engagement to childhood friend James Demetrius (William Ash). Hermia seems uneasy, though, and the reason why becomes clear when a handsome young man rushes in and ruins her father's speech. Introducing him as Xander (Rupert Evans) to her parents, Hermia drops a bombshell - she loves him, not James.

Theo is horrified, and tells her she's broken his heart. He's prevented from going after the pair by Polly, who advises giving them time. Hermia's best friend Helena (Michelle Bonnard) follows them and learns that they are planning to spend the night in an abandoned holiday villa.

Helena tries to comfort James, who she clearly cares for, but he is thinking only of Hermia. In desperation, Helena reveals she might know where her friend is.

Meanwhile, Oberon has had an idea of how to revenge himself on Titania, and commands Puck to bring him some love juice - a drug which makes people fall in love with the first thing they see.

While Puck's off fetching it, Oberon runs into Helena and James, just as James rejects Helena. On Puck's return, Oberon orders him to put love juice into James' eyes and make him fall in love with Helena. Then he's off, to drip some juice into Titania's eyes.

Puck messes up his task, leaving Xander in love with Helena by mistake. Then he has a bit of fun turning terrible comedian Peter Bottom (Johnny Vegas) into a monster. Just then, Titania awakes, and falls for the half-donkey comedian, taking him back to her love nest for a night of passion.

Elsewhere, Oberon has spotted James still chasing Hermia, and demands Puck gets things right - which he does, eventually. He seems pleased about Titania's humiliation at first. However, a late night chat with Theo, also reeling from an argument with his wife, makes both men face up to the mistakes they're making in their relationships. Both set off to try to make amends.

The next day, all is well. Polly and Theo renew their vows, Hermia and Xander are in love, James and Helena are in love, Oberon and Titania are reconciled. And Bottom? Well, he has a glittery thong to remember his midsummer night's dream by.

 

Much Ado About Nothing

Beatrice	---	Sarah Parish
Benedick	---	Damian Lewis
Taxi Driver	---	Andrew Barclay
Waiter	---	George Couyas
Leonard	---	Martin Jarvis
Ursula	---	Olivia Colman
Claude	---	Tom Ellis
Don	---	Derek Riddell
Keith	---	Patrick Ryecart
Hero	---	Billie Piper
Margaret	---	Nina Sosanya
Mr Berry	---	Anthony O'Donnell
Vince	---	Rasmus Hardiker
Peter	---	Michael Smiley
Girl in Club	---	Henrietta Clemett
Receptionist	---	Lorna Brown
Vicar	---	George Potts
Doctor	---	Rufus Jones
Nurse	---	Charon Georgette

Written by William Shakespeare, David Nicholls
Written by Brian Percival
Produced by Diederick Santer
Executive Produced by Laura Mackie
Original Music by Tim Atack
Cinematography by Peter Greenhalgh
Film Editing by Kristina Hetherington
Costume Design by Ralph Holes

Macbeth

Joe Macbeth	---	James McAvoy
Ella Macbeth	---	Keeley Hawes
Billy	---	Joseph Millson
Duncan	---	Vincent Regan
Peter Macduff	---	Richard Armitage
Harry Gibby	---	Philip Whitchurch
Maurice	---	Richard Ridings
Barry	---	Ralph Ineson
Andy	---	Charles Abomeli
Malcolm	---	Toby Kebbell
Jonny Boy	---	Gregory Chisholm
Roddy	---	Barry Ward
Heaney	---	Packy Lee
Doyle	---	Matthew Dunphy
DCI Varley	---	Clive Brunt
Fiona Macduff	---	Jo-Anne Stockham
Bin Man	---	Nick Malinowski
Goran	---	Shaban Arifi
Dragan	---	Ben Enwright
Marketman	---	Alan Wraxall
Zara Macduff	---	Nicole Forster
Amelia Macduff	---	Holly Mai Leighton
Freddy	---	David Perkins
Howler	---	Mark Stevenson
Duncan's PA	---	Anna Hope

Written by William Shakespeare, Peter Moffatt
Directed by Mark Brozel
Produced by Pier Wilkie
Executive Produced by Laura Mackie, Patrick Spence
Original Music by Kevin Sargent
Cinematography by Nicholas D. Knowland
Film Editing by Chris Ridsdale
Costume Design by Annie Symons

The Taming of the Shrew

Katherine Minola	---	Shirley Henderson
Tim Agnew	---	David Mitchell
John Naps	---	Simon Chandler
Bianca Minola	---	Jaime Murray
Tranio	---	Federico Zanni
Lucentio	---	Santiago Cabrera
Harry Kavanagh	---	Stephen Tompkinson
Mrs Minola	---	Twiggy
French Waiter	---	Yves Aubert
Petruchio	---	Rufus Sewell
Scary Yob	---	Paul McNeilly
Journalist	---	Samuel Oatley
Vicar	---	Bruce Mackinnon
Elaine	---	Kate Russell-Smith
Barman	---	David Weber
Italian Lady	---	Addoloraca Romano
Vincentio Bentivoli	---	Alex Giannini
Lawyer	---	Kish Sharma
Translator	---	Peter Kelly
Speaker	---	Geoffrey Whitehead

Written by William Shakespeare, Sally Wainwright
Directed by David Richards
Produced by Diederick santer
Executive Produced by Laura Mackie, Patrick Spence
Original Music by Hal Lindes
Cinematography by Alan Almond
Film Editing by Catherine Creed
Costume Design by Justine Luxton

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Theo	---	Bill Paterson
Polly	---	Imelda Staunton
Oberon	---	Lennie James
Titania	---	Sharon Small
Puck	---	Dean Lennox Kelly
James	---	William Ash
Hermia	---	Zoe Tapper
Zander	---	Rupert Evans
Helena	---	Michelle Bonnard
Bottom	---	Johnny Vegas
Quince	---	Simon Day
Flute	---	Mina Anwar
Snug	---	Ben Crompton
Snout	---	Emmanuel Ighodaro
Geoff	---	Andy Williams
Cobweb	---	Amy Darcy
Moth	---	Nick Malinowski
Mustardseed	---	Qaseem Ansari
Peaseblossom	---	Meg Faragher

Written by William Shakespeare, Peter Bowker
Directed by Ed Fraiman
Produced by Pier Wilkie
Executive Produced by Laura Mackie, Patrick Spence
Original Music by Charlie Mole
Cinematography by Tony Miller
Film Editing by Mark Thornton
Costume Design by Stewart Meachem

Much Ado About Nothing
Hero (Billie Piper)
Explaining how she joined the cast, Billie said, "At drama school we studied Shakespeare three days a week, so when the script was floating around, I was quite keen to get a look at it.

"It's so good, and when I heard that Sarah and Damian were involved, I knew I'd be in good company."

But Shakespeare hasn't always been such an inviting prospect for Billie.

"I think Shakespeare dominated about four years of my life and, at first, I used to find it so daunting. The thought of sitting down with Shakespearian text used to scare me. But then I went to theatre school and it took on a whole new life. I became a huge fan."

Researching for the role, Billie visited a real-life weathergirl.

"She showed me some footage of her when she first started and that was really beneficial. There are certain ways to hold and present yourself and there's also a rhythm in the way news reporters speak - you have to get hold of that intonation. And then I just watched daytime TV solidly for about a week!"

The main challenge, shared by both Billie and Hero, was wrapping their tongues around mind-boggling meteorological terms. "Altostratus castellanus," took the prize for most difficult word to pronounce.

"Mid-take, you'd find your top lip curled and you'd be sweating like a pig," Billie confides. "Those lines really did give you the fear.

"But I was working on Doctor Who at the same time, so I was getting used to saying words that I'd never used in my life, and also words that weren't in the dictionary - just made-up, [writer] Russell T Davies words - so I started to get better and better at pronouncing the difficult ones.

The best aspects of filming Much Ado included the script - "genuinely funny, with laugh-out-loud jokes" - and the friendships which developed.

"It was an ensemble piece and we all gelled and got on so well - that was one of the highlights," adds the vivacious actress.

Beatrice (Sarah Parish)
Writer David Nicholls' script was one of the lures for Sarah. "There are some men who write brilliantly for women - they write so well for women that you can't actually believe they're a man!" she enthuses.

"David is one of those men - he has this wonderful empathy with female characters without making them a bit wet. I loved playing Beatrice - I do play a lot of characters like Bea that are slightly waspish and a little bit harsh and don't suffer fools particularly. But I guess I play a lot of them because I like it," she admits with a laugh.

Another attraction was playing opposite Band Of Brothers star Damian, with whom she'd appeared in the BBC drama Hearts And Bones.

"We got on very well and we've been friends, so that was great. The relationship between Beatrice and Benedick is incredibly important because the writing has that very quick, throwaway style," she explains, snapping her fingers.

"So you need to be with somebody who you know is going to pass the ball all the time; you kind of have to second-guess what they're going to do. It's the joy of the banter and I knew that Damian would be able to do that."

Playing a newsreader also appealed to Sarah. "I think the way that he [Nicholls] has adapted the original story into a provincial newsroom is a stroke of genius," she declares.

"You often see a man and a woman sat on a sofa and you wonder what they actually really think of each other; what happens when the camera goes off, what kind of relationship do they have. I thought the concept of the piece was great."

As part of her research for Much Ado, Sarah spent two days in the BBC's South Today newsroom, under the wing of anchorwoman Sally Taylor.

"I'm a big fan of research - I enjoy the beginning, before the work starts," says Sarah. One think she learned about was talkback. "Newsreaders have a thing that they stick in their ear and the gallery will tell them how much time they've got left," explains Sarah.

"So I'll be talking to you, but there will be somebody in my ear and it's like you're going mad. They'll be saying, 'OK, you've got to wrap the interview up now, you've got one more minute - oh no, keep going, the other thing's fallen through'.

"And of course, when we all first had the device in, we were hopeless. We'd be in the middle of a scene and I'd just stop. It's almost impossible. The way they do it is a real gift.

"It became easier for us because we were doing the same scene over and over again, so I knew I was going to hear it. But the first time, it's just like you've got a fly in your brain!"

The petite, brown-eyed star believes the BBC's four modern adaptations are important in that they may bring people back to the Bard. "I think there are a lot of people out there that go, 'Oh, Shakespeare'," says Sarah, mimicking a mini-shudder.

"As soon as you hear the Shakey word you kind of go, 'I don't get it, I feel inadequate and thick and stupid and only Dame Judi Dench can do that; only the Dames and the slightly theatrical people are allowed to do it'.

"That's always put me off Shakespeare because what they are, at the end of the day, are very simple stories, and if they're told properly and simply, then most people can understand them.

"When I was younger, I was put off Shakespeare because I didn't want to see a bunch of people in tights hooting these lines at me; I wanted to see a story." Sarah was won over when she went to the Mermaid Theatre to see a first folio interpretation; first folio, she explains, is how the plays were enacted during Shakespeare's time.

"It was an electric evening," she recalls, "so Shakespeare can be done brilliantly or it can be done very, very badly. Hopefully, these modern adaptations might make young people, or those studying drama or theatre studies, think that they'll go back to their Complete Works and have another look."

Sarah thinks viewers will warm to Beatrice, despite the dripping vitriol from her acid tongue.

"David [Nicholls] shows Beatrice and Benedick breaking up right at the beginning, three years previously to when the actual present action takes place," she says, setting the scene.

"It shows her in an attractive way - an excited girl, on this date with him, and then he doesn't turn up and you see how heartbroken she is. And I think that really helps the character because sometimes Beatrice can be quite hard and a bit unlovable.

"She's got some great lines and they are all fierce and you need to understand why that fierceness comes out, so it was good that David did that and I hope viewers like her."

On the set of Much Ado, says Sarah, "Every single minute of every single day was brilliant. It was the best job I've ever done, fun-wise - it was such a laugh. Everyone gelled very well, it was cast beautifully - they took a long time to find the people that would really work. And Damian and I have some terrific scenes together," she smiles.

"I think you can tell when you watch it that a lot of fun was had! It was just one of those gems."

Macbeth
Joe Macbeth (James McAvoy)
Interviewed about the part, the 26-year-old-Glaswegian admits, "I like cooking but I don't think I could be a chef. Everyone from the ground up does terrible hours, whether you've just walked in off the street and you've got no experience, to whether you're the head chef. You can work 14 or 15-hour days. It's really, really intense."

In preparation for his role in Macbeth, James spent a few days at Le Gavroche, in London.

"It was so fantastic and the food tasted so good. I'm dying to have a proper meal there. I only picked bits while I was in the kitchen. It was fantastic, though. Michel Roux Jr. put me through my paces and his head chef sorted me out," he says.

James is a fan of Shakespeare, particularly of Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet and Anthony and Cleopatra. He also likes the idea of modern adaptations of old classics.

"I think they do work," he says. "Shakespeare's stories are still very strong. He structured fantastic stories about things that were fundamental to the human being and psyche.

"It's also the first time, I think, that Macbeth has been set in a kitchen. I don't know what Shakespeare would have made of it. Though I think he might have found it interesting!"

James sees this adaptation of Macbeth as "an examination of descent and psychosis".

"It's not a thriller, or a murder mystery, even though all these people die," he explains. "None of it is overly realistic."

James describes his character, Joe Macbeth, as "very extreme... I think the thing that keeps a chef going is pride and ego, which is what I drew on a lot for Joe - pride, ego and respect. A lot of it is respect and that was kind of what made him kill," he says.

Joe's relationship with Ella is a really harmful and dysfunctional one. But at the same time, as James says, "it's very loving." "It's quite sexy, kinky and quite self-perpetuating as well, because they spur each other on a lot," he explains.

"You don't see a lot of this, though. You see them after everything has changed. You see them develop and they become very different and end up being very bad for each other. Ella becomes an absolute maniac!" he laughs.

"She becomes really harmful and ambitious and she can't bear to see Joe being overlooked. He can't back down. He's got such an ego and can't bear to have his balls chopped off by her."

Ella also feels that Duncan (played by Vincent Regan) takes advantage of Joe and is quite happy to have him working all hours of the day.

"Duncan completely exploits Joe. He's everything that could be wrong with TV chefs. He certainly isn't Rick Stein, who is brilliant," says James. "He really takes the mick. He's happy for Joe to do all the work while he takes all the credit for it. He's a charlatan."

James has played Shakespeare before, having been Romeo in a stage version of Romeo and Juliet. He explains why he prefers the stage, "Whether they like it or not, the audience you're telling the story to are there in front of you and when you make a film, the audience are not even present; and, secondly, the world will have changed by the time they see it."

"And also the reason I prefer the theatre is because you tell a story from beginning to end and never stop. There's none of this 'let's take three months to tell the story' that really in the end gets told in an hour or two hours. But I love filming as well."

After seeing the finished version of Macbeth, James is full of praise for his co-star, Keeley Hawes.

"I thought Keeley was absolutely great. There were a lot of good performances in it - I really liked it," he says. "It's weird because it's all murders, but it's not a film and it's not a murder mystery.

"I think it's more a study of how evil we can become. It's not about being caught or evading the police, or about how they [Joe and Ella] got away with it. It's more to do with how they don't get away with it psychologically or morally, in their own heads; that's what's interesting about it."

Overall, James thoroughly enjoyed his experience filming Macbeth.

"I loved filming all the scenes in the kitchen - that was the best - because we all got to be quite butch!" he laughs.

Ella Macbeth (Keeley Hawes)
Talking about her role as Ella Macbeth, Keeley Hawes explained that playing a woman who has lost her baby was a huge challenge.

"Most of my scenes are emotional in one way or another but the scene with the baby was actually quite disturbing.

"I'd just had a baby, three months before, and although being a mother helped me get in touch with the right feelings, I had to separate myself from it all because I was talking about a tiny baby and I had my little one at home. I was quite emotional anyway because I'd just given birth," she reveals.

It was the quality of Peter Moffat's script which tempted Keeley back in front of the cameras so soon after giving birth. The star of Spooks and Tipping the Velvet explains: "I was thinking about going back to work when the script came through the door and I couldn't believe how fantastic it was.

"I thought it was so cleverly done and when reading some of the lines, the hairs stood up on the back of my neck.

"I love the play, too - it's something I've aspired to do. I'd also seen Hawking, which Peter Moffat wrote (starring Benedict Cumberbatch) and thought that was brilliant."

Despite the play's darkness, there were amusing moments.

"We all laughed a lot," says Keeley. "You get that many boys [her co-stars] in a room and you're going to laugh. Everybody got on so well. It has to be kept light when you're talking about stabbing people to death or you're being showered in blood, otherwise it could all have been quite depressing. There'd be fits of giggles - it was all quite light-hearted."

Explaining what motivates the ambitious and feisty Ella Macbeth, Keeley says, "I think the loss of the baby means that she's very damaged - although that's no excuse for what then happens! Because of her job and the status she has within the restaurant, she has to be seen to be holding it together at all times.

"So when she brings up the subject of murder, things must be at their lowest. She just feels that she's got nothing else to lose. She's lost her baby and is disturbed that Joe and she have not talked about it or expressed any of their emotions.

"Also, they feel like they're not appreciated or respected for what they do at the restaurant. It almost sounds like there should be some sort of excuse for what happens, but there's no excuse really," stresses Keeley.

Asked if the viewers will understand why Ella is driven to the ultimate crime, Keeley replies, "Hopefully. I watched it and I didn't come away full of hate for her. I had a shred of sympathy for her; and it's not like she runs off into the sunset. The whole thing is a tragedy."

Keeley had no qualms about appearing in "the Scottish play". "I don't really have any of those superstitions about it," she says with her infectious laugh, "and nothing went horribly wrong."

Keeley's research included watching Dame Judi Dench - and having a slap-up meal.

"My husband (Spooks co-star Matthew MacFadyen) bought me the DVD [of the 1979 Macbeth starring Judi Dench] so we sat and watched it," she explains. "I also went along to a successful restaurant called Locanda Locatelli. We had lunch there and then went into the kitchen where I met a fantastic lady, the wife of the head chef, who was the Ella of that restaurant.

"You could see the relationship working in a Michelin-starred restaurant. It was fantastic to have had the opportunity to meet her and see what it is like running a restaurant."

Despite Ella's prowess as a queen of cuisine, Keeley herself doesn't lay claim to any cooking ability.

"My husband is the chef of the family; he's a brilliant cook. Actually, it makes you quite lazy when you have somebody that's so good at cooking under the same roof. It's all beans or spaghetti when I'm left to run it," she confesses.

"When Matthew was performing at the National Theatre for eight months he was out most evenings and by the end of it I was at a total loss. He'd have to make something on the Sunday and leave it in the fridge for me to have for the next few days. How pathetic!

Keeley feels that modern adaptations such as this help to bring the classics to a wider audience.

"I did one of the Chaucers - The Knight's Tale - and they were a huge success," she adds.

"So I think it can't fail and I think schools will probably be able to use them. There's no downside to doing it."

The Taming of the Shrew
Katherine (Shirley Henderson)
Interviewed about taking on the role of Katherine Minola, Shirley Henderson revealed that she'd experienced a twinge of doubt.

"I loved the script but I was scared of it as well, because the character just seemed so huge. I was excited by it but I was nervous of it at the same time," she says.

"I've never played anyone who's so high-powered and able - who speaks so fluently and powerfully - and that doesn't necessarily come easily to me. Her concentration is enormous but she's also shockingly vicious, and I wasn't sure how to pull that off."

"I went home and practised speaking the dialogue out loud to myself to get on top of the sound of her voice and her language. She goes from very stroppy to almost childlike very quickly, so I had to work on that. It was actually a lot of fun!" she laughs.

Musing on the character of Kate, Shirley chuckles," You know it's bad when the only date in her diary reads 'Put the bins out'. Her temper and her aggression have left her very lonely. But there is a reason for the madness and there's also a sense of humour there."

"She's very clever and she gets frustrated easily. She gets exasperated by people - especially people like her sister and her mother, who are very shallow, very silly and always talking about clothes and men - and so she alienates them and then that makes her more lonely, more frustrated and more angry. The problem is, no one can get beyond her shell."

But that seems set to change when Katherine meets the eccentric and passionate Petruchio (played by Rufus Sewell), who, much to her chagrin, promptly announces his intention to marry her.

"She finally meets her match," explains Shirley. "They're both horrendous on their own but together they spark and they calm each other down, though it is a bumpy ride..."

Shirley was delighted to work with Rufus again, having co-starred with him in Charles II.

"We work in a similar way and we jump in at the deep end and help each other. I'm not scared to try things out in front of him and he's the same with me. He's a gorgeous, lovely man, full of life and has so much to offer - a real jack-in-a-box," says Shirley, fondly.

Ironically, Shirley was never big on the Bard.

"I wasn't brought up going to the theatre and so Shakespeare was really just part of English class. I did like listening to it - one of our teachers used to speak it out loud to us - but I didn't know that you got up and acted this stuff out properly. I didn't understand how exciting it could be."

She didn't fully get to grips with Shakespeare until she enrolled at London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama in the early Eighties - and even now unselfconsciously declares that she's "not the biggest fan".

"I've done a bit of Shakespeare, not an awful lot, but I really enjoyed doing this," she says.

"It's got the breadth of Shakespeare, the same sort of spirit. You need a lot of energy behind the lines because there are huge speeches and a very demanding tempo. You've got to keep the ball up in the air and that's what my impression of Shakespeare is, too."

Petruchio (Rufus Sewell)
The Taming Of The Shrew sees the actor, famous for his smouldering good looks, don a daring combination of fishnets, miniskirt and kinky boots.

"Some of my friends would say I don't look that different to how I did in 1987!" laughs the 37-year-old actor, who stars as Petruchio in the modern-day comedy.

"I was heavily into make-up and nail polish back then. I was very androgynous; I loved eye-liner and had huge feather earrings. I never actually wore kinky boots or a miniskirt but I wasn't far off it, believe me. I was also quite big and in the rugby team, though, so I just about got away with it."

Almost two decades later, Rufus rediscovered his feminine side when Sally Wainwright's adaptation of one of Shakespeare's best-loved plays called for him to model heels of which Manolo Blahnik would be proud.

"It was worryingly fun and I felt strangely liberated," he laughs. "Often you see transvestites and they look like their mums - they lose all sense of taste. But I really like the idea that Petruchio looks kind of good. To him, he's not dressed like a woman - he's dressed like someone who says 'I'll wear what the hell I like'."

Petruchio's certainly no lady... on the contrary, he's lord of a somewhat crumbling manor. He might have a title (the 16th Earl of Charlbury), but he hasn't got much money.

So when he meets hardnosed MP Katherine Minola (Shirley Henderson) - who also happens to be loaded - he's determined to woo her.

"It's not love at first sight, it's money at first sight, which then becomes something more. It's a story of two total misfits taming each other, really," says Rufus, who jumped at the chance to work with Shirley Henderson again, after striking up a great friendship with her while working on Charles II: The Power and the Passion, two years ago.

"I loved playing Petruchio because he's just a big, daft, nice character. He does outrageous things and behaves totally inappropriately and it was a lot of fun just to have that kind of release."

The actor describes the film as a "modern riff on Shakespeare" and, appropriately, decided early on that "Petruchio is just the type of person who, occasionally, might quote a little bit of Shakespeare for theatrical effect. There are plenty of fruity old farts who do that - and he's one of them!"

It's not something Rufus would ever be caught doing, not least because, as a teenager, he did his best to avoid Shakespeare - and, indeed, school - while his classmates grappled with the iambic pentameter.

"I wasn't a model schoolboy," he says. "Of course, I was forced to sit through Shakespeare and I really got into some of it, though it depended on who was reading it out. If your first experience of Twelfth Night is some grumpy teenager droning on incomprehensibly, it can put you off a bit."

Despite his early misgivings about education, Rufus (who insists: "I'm a better-behaved boy now than I was then,") studied at London's Central School of Speech and Drama, where he won the Best Newcomer Award for his London stage debut in Making It Better.

"I was a very undisciplined person but acting was something that actually motivated me to get up in the morning. I hadn't experienced that before, but it was something that really excited me. I think I could be quite self-conscious and it gave me a release," he says.

Rufus has appeared on the big screen in A Knight's Tale and Helen Of Troy, and will shortly be seen in The Illusionist, alongside Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti, and medieval romance Tristan And Isolde.

He is also currently starring in swashbuckling action flick The Legend Of Zorro. The actor spent six months of last year in Mexico, filming the Zorro sequel opposite Catherine Zeta-Jones and Antonio Banderas.

"I'm really enjoying being at home now because I've been away so much. The Taming Of The Shrew is probably the first time I've worked in this country for about ten years, apart from theatre, and it's not for want of trying. It was so fantastic to work in London - it felt really glamorous," says Rufus, though he admits that the few days the cast spent in Tuscany were idyllic, even if they did "make mincemeat of any Atkins diets being attempted at the time".

Working at home also gave the actor the chance to catch up with some old friends, including Stephen Tompkinson, who also appears in the drama as Harry, Petruchio's best mate.

"Steve and I were at drama school together and have been mates for years," says Rufus. "We didn't have to do a lot of work on the relationship between the characters because it was kind of already there."

In fact, he says, some of the scenes took the pair right back to their student days.

"We used to go out on the booze together and I used to crash at his flat, things like that. In fact, I distinctly remember getting him into trouble once by leaving mascara marks on one of his pillows. His girlfriend wouldn't believe it was from a bloke. Then she met me and it all made sense..."

 

 

• Shakespeare Retold
• Much Ado About Nothing
• Macbeth
• The Taming of the Shrew
• A Midsummer Night's Dream