Shakespeare Sonnets
One-off special celebrating the 400th anniversary of the publication of Shakespeare’s first folio.
Client: BBC Arts / Rural Media
Sector: Narrative (45 Mins)
Services: Sound Design & Mix
SYNOPSIS
From the same team as BBC Four’s The Read, it follows a similar format but with four narrators rather than one. They perform twenty of Shakespeare’s love sonnets all linked by a narrative thread.
Set in contemporary England, the story is broken into four distinct movements: The Honeymoon, The Breakdown, The Breakup and The Breakthrough. It reveals the universal themes explored in the sonnets and how they continue to resonate today, and is a testament to the power of the bard’s words some four centuries later.
SOUND DESIGN
Each sonnet is performed in a different location, and there are interlude sections between each one. Because of this we utilised more foley sound than a typical Read, as well as audio transition effects to bridge the various sections.
Composer Billy Lambert created a beautiful, constantly ebbing and flowing underscore, so more hands-on mixing was required to balance the dialogue, music and effects for the duration of the episode.
CREDITS
Director – Alice Johannessen
Original Story – Grant Black
Starring – Rose Ayling Ellis, Eloka Ivo, Eben Figueiredo, Ioanna Kimbook
Director of Photography – Luke J. Collins
Producer – Julie Colman
Location Sound – Ian Preece, Jake McKenzie-Hayes
BSL Director – Jean St Clair
Production Design – Eva Wright, Hannah Rawson
Sound Design – Brian Lane
Music Composer – Billy Lambert
Colourist – Vic Parker
Visual Effects Artist – Gareth Bennett
Post Production Coordinator – Rich Hankins
Editor – Chloe Hardwick
Commissioning Editor for BBC Arts – Stephen James-Yeoman
Exec Producer – Grant Black
BROADCAST
Originally broadcast on BBC Four at 8pm, Sunday 29th October 2023.
Now available on BBC iPlayer.