The centrepiece of the season is a gripping three-part documentary series for BBC Two and iPlayer, Shakespeare: Rise of a Genius, featuring an A-list cast of actors, including Dame Judi Dench, Dame Helen Mirren, Brian Cox, Adrian Lester, Lolita Chakrabarti, Martin Freeman and Jessie Buckley, alongside academics and writers James Shapiro, Jeanette Winterson, Lucy Jago , Jeremy O’Harris and Ewan Fernie - who provide fresh insights into the incredible story of our greatest writer, the place and time he inhabited and the work he produced.