Sarah Lancashire, Steven Knight team up for Shakespeare series.

Happy Valley star Sarah Lancashire is teaming up with Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight for a drama series based on the life of William Shakespeare.

The concept synopsis by Lancashire, reads “For the first time on television, the drama will tell the complete and thrilling story of the glove-maker’s son who became the greatest storyteller in history. And how one man’s genius survived and thrived in an age of turmoil and terror, danger and disease.

“This is the first full account of the passion, people and politics that made William Shakespeare the world’s most famous dramatist and the men and women around him who loved and laboured, schemed and plotted, killed and connived in one of the most dangerous and exciting periods in history.”

Lancashire said: “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. This is a thrilling project about a golden age beset by plague, Puritanism and deadly politics.”

Knight added: “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. 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.”

Broadcasters are yet to be attached.

Source: Radio Times