BBC announces major season of musical broadcasts

As the BBC prepares to broadcast this year’s Big Night of Musicals, it has unveiled a series of dedicated musical broadcasts over the coming weeks.

The broadcasts cover programming on BBC iPlayer and BBC Four. The award-winning staging of Anything Goes at the Barbican, with Sutton Foster and Robert Lindsay, is now available to stream on the BBC’s platform, as is the all-star staging of Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends, recorded at the Sondheim Theatre and featuring the likes of Judi Dench, Imelda Staunton, Clive Rowe, Rob Brydon and Helena Bonham Carter.

According to the BBC’s trailer, also lined up is Kiss Me, Kate (expected to be the classic film, rather than a taped version of the recent revival, though we await confirmation), In the Heights, South Pacific, Porgy and Bess and West Side Story. Dates for these showings are to be revealed.

Tomorrow, 23 March, there will be a BBC Four re-showing of the BBC’s Musicals: The Greatest Show, recorded at the London Palladium during the Covid lockdowns. This is followed by a Wogan on Follies special, a Sondheim on Broadway: Follies – Four Days in New York documentary and a re-airing of Sondheim at the BBC. 

Listen to the WhatsOnStage Podcast episode with Bernadette Peters for free here:

Next Sunday BBC Four’s schedule will include an airing of the Donmar Warehouse staging of Company, which we’ve covered in more detail here.

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