History play

From the Evening Standard, 5th July. BBC Shakespeare trumps Jubilee to put George on top

Was it the Bard wot won it for George Entwistle? BBC Trust chief Lord Patten has revealed that Saturday night’s acclaimed BBC2 dramatisation of Shakespeare’s Richard II played a more than helpful role in securing the director-general position for George Entwistle... 


Patten said the drama effectively wiped the slate clean for Entwistle, who had been held responsible for the BBC’s disastrous Jubilee river pageant coverage. “As reviewers have said, it was probably the best televised Shakespeare there’s ever been,” said the Trust chair. “There is much more (in George’s favour) on the good side of the ledger than any criticisms.” And so George was crowned the king.


I think if Lord Patten were to dig deeper, he would find a dramatic twist Shakespeare would have been proud of. The concept of The Hollow Crown series was regularly resisted by BBC Vision, and only went ahead at the insistence of Mark Thompson, who had to "find" special funding before it was made.