Kudos Teams with Steven Knight for Shakespeare Biopic

Banijay UK’s Kudos has partnered with Sarah Lancashire’s Via Pictures and BAFTA-winning screenwriter Steven Knight to develop a series based on William Shakespeare’s life.

The series will provide a full account of the passion, people and politics that made Shakespeare the world’s most famous dramatist, as well as the men and women around him who schemed, plotted and killed during one of the most dangerous periods in history.

It is based on a concept developed by Lancashire (Happy Valley). Knight will pen the series, which will be produced out of his Digbeth Loc. Studios in Birmingham by Kudos, in association with Lancashire’s production company Via Pictures, which she formed with former BBC, Banijay UK and EndemolShine executive Peter Salmon.

The series will be executive produced by Karen Wilson and Martin Haines for Kudos, Lancashire and Salmon for Via Pictures and Knight.

“Via Pictures are very pleased to be collaborating with Kudos and the brilliant Steven Knight to screen the remarkable story of William Shakespeare and his contemporaries,” Lancashire said. “This is a thrilling project about a Golden Age beset by plague, Puritanism and deadly politics.”

“I’m excited to be embarking on what will be a landmark TV production telling the dramatic story of the world’s most accomplished writer,” Knight said. “It’s a period I love and the team that has been put together is extraordinary. It’s a story that begins in the West Midlands and is close to my heart.”

Wilson and Haines, joint managing directors for Kudos, added, “Sarah’s idea has huge scale and high drama, and with Steven Knight writing, this is an unbelievably exciting project which we can’t wait to get on screen.”