BBC announces stage shows as part of festive TV line-up

The BBC has unveiled its festive line-up, replete with an assortment of theatre-related content.

Rambert’s critically lauded show The Redemption of Thomas Shelby will air in a single 105-minute episode, having been filmed on the Birmingham Hippodrome stage, as will Matthew Bourne’s critically lauded staging of Sleeping Beauty, featuring Tchaikovsky’s score.

Mark Gatiss will star as Sherlock Holmes with Sanjeev Bhaskar as Dr Watson in a reading of Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles, recorded from the stage of the Barbican.

The legend comedy star Dawn French, who appeared in last year’s Palladium pantomime, will bring her hit 75-minute stand-up show Dawn French is a huge TW*T to BBC One and BBC iPlayer, having been filmed at the Palladium.

A documentary exploring the life of famed writer Noël Coward will run on BBC Two and iPlayer, narrated by Alan Cumming with Rupert Everett as the voice of Noel Coward and appearances from Laurence Olivier, Maggie Smith, Harold Pinter, Frank Sinatra, Lauren Bacall, Michael Caine and Lucille Ball.

The famous musical Kanneh-Mason family will travel to Austria to explore the legacy of the Von Trapps, while hit series Bad Education will present a musical-themed Christmas episode, starring Layton Williams, Charlie Wernham, Mathew Horne and Vicki Pepperdine.

Broadcast dates and further programming is to be confirmed in due course.

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