A place to update visitors with the latest news and information about Christopher Eccleston and his work and also to inform visitors about any updates/additions to my Chris related website.
The BBC has announced further programming for its "Culture in Quarantine" scheme to run while arts venues are locked down.
The company will broadcast six of the RSC's recent productions on BBC Four and BBC iPlayer:
Macbeth with Christopher Eccleston and Niamh Cusack Othello with Hugh Quarshie in the title role and Lucian Msamati as Iago Romeo and Juliet with Bally Gill as Romeo and Karen Fishwick as Juliet The Merchant of Venice with Makram J Khoury as Shylock Much Ado About Nothing with Edward Bennett as Benedick and Michelle Terry as Beatrice Hamlet with Paapa Essiedu in the title role
As formerly announced, the BBC will also collaborate with The Space to present new filmed recordings of Mike Bartlett's Albion, Emma Rice's Wise Children and Battersea Arts Centre's Frankenstein, as well as BalletBoyz's new piece Deluxe. On top of this, Russell T Davies' TV version of A Midsummer Night's Dream and Anthony Hopkins' King Lear will be repeated.
David Greig's new play Adventures With The Painted People, set 2000 years ago in Pitlochry, will premiere on BBC Radio 3. Bryony Kimmings will investigate the relationship between opera and motherhood in Opera Mums, while Margaret Atwood and Mary Beard will present a new puppetry show created by Atwood in response to an Edgar Allan Poe tale.
FORMER Doctor Who star Christopher Eccleston has launched a blistering attack on the BBC over the circumstances which caused him to quit the show after just one series.
The outspoken actor chose his appearance at a Doctor Who convention in Los Angeles to break a long silence on his sharp exit from the Tardis in 2005.
He told fans: "A lot of **** went down because of the BBC. The politics on the show were horrendous."
"It went wrong pretty quickly. My relationship with Russell T Davies and the other producers fell apart during recording of the first block of episodes."
The 56-year-old star said meeting adoring fans at conventions like this one in California was cathartic. "I've felt a huge amount of love. It's helped me get over the BBC ******** , like the BBC inventing a quote on my behalf." He was believed to be referring to a statement saying he left the show because of fears of being typecast which the BBC later admitted was falsely attributed and released without his permission.
The actor's Los Angeles address to the fans was full of praise for co-star Billie Piper, saying: "Billie was terrified at first but she turned out to be the best actor on Doctorwho."
He was less forthcoming about another of his castmates, John Barrowman, saying of him: "No comment.we'll move swiftly on."
Christopher admitted his approach did not gel with some of the upper management in the BBC'S Doctorwho team.
"I know I wasn't first choice for the role. Hugh Grant turned it down and
Bill Nighy turned it down. At the first script read-through we all had to introduce ourselves. I said, 'Hello, I'm Bill Nighy and I'm playing the Doctor.' It didn't go down well. A BBC executive was seen to leave the room." Christopher said he always had faith in the revived show being the big hit it turned out to be but that faith was not always shared in the executive corridors of the corporation. He said: "The BBC don't really know if anything's good until it's good but I had confidence because I'd worked with Russell T Davies before on The Second Coming and I've based my entire TV career on working with strong writers."
He said one of his proudest achievements was using his own Salford accent to play the Time Lord. When Billie Piper's character Rose Tyler asks his alien character in one episode why he sounds like a northerner, his Doctor replies: "Every planet has a north."
The star continued: "I couldn't relate to the other Doctors because they all sounded like BBC newsreaders. And, previously, the Doctor had always been more foppish and bohemian. If you grow up in Britain you cannot escape the disease of class, the idea that working-class people can never be intellectual or have a poetic sensibility."
But some things are changing and he is thrilled that the Tardis is now occupied by Jodie Whittaker, a woman and a fellow northerner. "My son Albert and daughter Esme are growing up in a world where the Doctor can be a woman and that's great," he said.
Christopher Eccleston is set to appear in a screenplay by A Clockwork Orange author Anthony Burgess which has never been produced before.
The drama, titled Schreber, was written in 1975 for Hollywood heavyweight Burt Lancaster and has been adapted for BBC Radio 3.
The story follows a 19th century German High Court judge, Daniel Schreber, who suffers a series of nervous breakdowns.
Former Doctor Who star Eccleston said: "I'm chuffed to bits to be playing Schreber in Anthony Burgess's unproduced screenplay.
"The role was originally meant to be played by a personal acting hero of mine – Burt Lancaster – and deals with male mental health and challenges traditional gender roles and thinking."
Schreber will be broadcast on March 22.
BBC Radio 3 has announced a string of other dramas featuring actors including Simon Russell Beale, David Suchet and Toby Jones.
