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BBC Drama Production is to adapt Jane Austen’s classic novel Emma for transmission on BBC1 in the autumn.
Bafta-winning writer Sandy Welch, who has already adapted Our Mutual Friend and Jane Eyre for the screen, will write the production, which will be broadcast as four 60-minute episodes.
Ben Stephenson, controller, drama commissioning, said: "This four-part adaptation—the first serial version of Emma since the Seventies—gives Sandy the opportunity to find new detail and added psychological depth in Austen's characters."
The BBC today announced a stronger commitment to the arts; BBC director-general Mark Thompson said: "The BBC has a special responsibility to support and enable the cultural life of Britain, particularly though our investment in arts and music programming.” He pledged to create a new arts editor role for BBC News.
Projects lined up include: a documentary on John Donne by Simon Schama and a film on Milton by Armando Iannucci on BBC2 this spring; a poetry series called "Lifelines"; a programme on T S Eliot for "Arena" and a nationwide poetry recital compeition for primary schools "Off By Heart".
On BBC4, Owen Sheers will explore six works of British poetry; Ian Hislop will welcome the new poet laureate; Simon Armitage discovers Gawain and the Green Knight; and there will be a programme about Radio 4’s "Poetry Please". BBC4 will also present a "Why Reading Matters" season.
Radio programming includes celebrations of the 200th anniversary of Tennyson’s birth, and a dramatisation of John Le Carre’s George Smiley novels on Radio 4.