Elsinore

Original version

BBC Radio 4 LW

Drama: Classic & Period

Sebastian Baczkiewicz's thrilling prequel to Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Sebastian Baczkiewicz's thrilling prequel to Shakespeare's Hamlet. Set in an alternative 20th-century Europe.

BBC Radio 4 FM

John Light

John Heffernan

Ed Gaughan

Chetna Pandya

Clive Hayward

Neil McCaul

Rupert Holliday Evans

Tayla Kovacevic-Ebong

Isabella Inchbald

Abbie Andrews

David Reakes

Philip Bretherton

Adam Fitzgerald

Marc Beeby

Sasha Yevtushenko

Sebastian Baczkiewicz

Elsinore: Series 1: Episode 1

Episode 1

Series 1

BBC Radio 4 - Elsinore, Series 1, Episode 1

Prequel to Shakespeare's Hamlet, imagining the turbulent world of the Danish court.

Sebastian Baczkiewicz conjures up a head in a box, judicial murder and political skulduggery in a thrilling prequel to Shakespeare's Hamlet. Set in an alternative 1930s Europe.

By Sebastian Baczkiewicz

Set in an alternative Europe in the 1930s, Elsinore imagines the turbulent world of the Danish Court in events that take place some years before the story told in Shakespeare's Hamlet.

King Hamlet's brother, Claudius, is sent to Spain as Denmark's new ambassador. On the way, he is captured by the infamous pirate Captain True. Back in Elsinore, meanwhile, the King must deal with a possible rebellion.

Directed by Marc Beeby & Sasha Yevtushenko

ELSINORE is a prequel to Shakespeare's Hamlet, exploring the relationships at the Danish court, particularly the troubled, not to say murderous relationship between King Hamlet and his brother Claudius. The plays are set in an alternative Europe in the early 1930s. Denmark is a powerful, militarised country with a small Empire around the Baltic which it is fighting hard to maintain. There is more than a hint of totalitarianism in the air. The realism of this is sometimes combined with moments of magical otherworldliness, not out of keeping with Shakespeare's original play.

Elsinore: Series 1

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Thrilling prequel to Shakespeare's Hamlet. Set in an alternative 1930s Europe.

Sebastian Baczkiewicz's thrilling prequel to Shakespeare's Hamlet imagines the turbulent world of the Danish Court in an alternative 1930s Europe.

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