David Tennant will take part in Prefaces To Shakespeare, one of the programmes making up the Shakespeare Season which will form part of the London 2012 celebrations on the BBC.

The arrival of the Olympic Games in the UK next year sees the climax of the four-year long Cultural Olympiad with the London 2012 Festival, which runs from June to September 2012. To celebrate the events the BBC have commissioned an ambitious set of programmes to celebrate the best of British arts and culture and to explore the history of London. Part of this programming will include a Shakespeare season.

Prefaces To Shakespeare will be hosted by a number of actors including Ethan Hawke and Sir Derek Jacobi as well as David, and will explore the characters and stories within some of Shakespeare’s greatest plays. According to the Press Release:

“It will unearth both the onstage drama and the backstage gossip of the golden age of British Theatre.

In the process it will reveal the life and career of Shakespeare in a totally new way and find out what the plays and their characters can mean to people today, revealing how they still have the power to shock, to make us laugh – and even to break our hearts. “

Prefaces To Shakespeare is a 116 Films and Blakeway Production for the BBC in association with WNET/Thirteen.

Broadcast details are yet to be confirmed.

Read the Press Release and follow links to explore other programming in the season here