Love's Labour

The British Broadcasting Corp. last week announced the most ambitious TV series ever planned: it will film, over the next six years, all of William Shakespeare's 37 plays, specifically staged for the small screen, a massive project that will cost $3.6 million and yield some 70 hours of programming. The BBC aims to produce six plays annually, with the first scheduled to start shooting in about 18 months. Although no stars have as yet been signed, Lord Olivier and Sir John Gielgud, among other major Shakespearean actors, are on the BBC'S shopping list.

The BBC, a semipublic corporation that derives most of its revenues from viewer license fees, is looking for a production partner to help finance the series. In Britain, the BBC provides a complete range of TV programming--news, sports, music, religion, commentary and light entertainment. But the BBC shows that have found their way to the U.S. and turned a tidy profit for the corporation have been mainly polished dramas and documentaries, such as The Forsythe Saga, Elizabeth R. with Glenda Jackson, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man and Alistair Cooke's America. The Shakespeare series, says BBC Programming Director Alasdair Milne, with no understatement at all, "is a vast project, the biggest we have ever undertaken, and a tremendously exciting one. We think it ought to be done, and we think we are the only TV organization in the world that can do it."

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