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84-744: Known as the "Bad Boys of Abridgment," the RSC has created ten stage shows: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) in 1987, The Complete History of America (abridged) in 1992, The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged) in 1995, The Complete Millennium Musical (abridged) in 1998, All the Great Books (abridged) in 2002, Completely Hollywood (abridged) in 2005, The Complete World of Sports (abridged) in 2010, The Ultimate Christmas Show (abridged) in 2011, The Complete History of Comedy (abridged) in 2013 and William Shakespeare's Long Lost First Play (abridged) in 2016. The company tours in

168-516: A "balanced British view" of international developments. Former director Peter Horrocks visualised the organisation as fighting an " information war " of soft power against Russian and Chinese international state media , including RT . As such, the BBC has been banned in both Russia and China, the former following its 2022 invasion of Ukraine . The director of the BBC World Service

252-411: A 20-minute version of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet , which they performed at Renaissance fairs, on street corners, beaches, and at private events. Crowds were amazed to see two men arrive with a small basket of costumes, two fencing foils, two bottles of poison, a rose, a dagger, a wig and a dummy, and proceed to enact the entire story with the zany style of a Marx Brothers movie. Borgeson rejoined

336-514: A Kyrgyz radio station under a pseudonym with a disguised voice. One of the leaders of the revolution, Aliyasbek Alymkulov, named the producer as his mentor and claimed that they had discussed preparations for the revolution. According to London newspaper the Evening Standard , "Mr Alymkulov claimed that Koichiev arranged secret meetings "through the BBC" and organised the march at the presidential palace on 7 April 2010" In October 2010,

420-547: A church basement at 10:30 a.m. for a three-week run to generally sold-out houses. After that, the show (expanded to 97 minutes) toured theatres and festivals around the world. In repertory with the RSC's second show, The Complete History of America (abridged) , The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) ran for nine years at the Criterion Theatre , London West End, with the company's third show, The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged), joining

504-781: A comical ten minutes for Sky TV in Britain. They performed Lost Reduced along with Matt Rippy . It can be seen on YouTube. Martin and Tichenor created the troupe's fifth stage show All the Great Books (abridged) in 2002, followed by Completely Hollywood (abridged) in 2005. Both these shows toured extensively across the USA and Great Britain, including runs at the Kennedy Center and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The Complete World of Sports (abridged) by Martin and Tichenor debuted 2010 and has also toured across

588-832: A full partner in 1988, and also occasionally appeared as a performer with the troupe, most famously in the title role of the RSC's incarnation as the Abbreviated Ballet Theatre for Lucinda, Wood Nymph of the Glade. The Complete Works script that resulted from these collaborations successfully premiered in an open-framed barn at the Paramount Ranch in Agoura, adjacent to the site of the Southern California Renaissance Faire. It then moved to Edinburgh proper, being performed in

672-593: A mixture of the United Kingdom's television licence fee , limited advertising profits of BBC Studios , and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office funding. From 2014, the service was guaranteed £289 million (allocated over a five-year period ending in 2020) from the UK government. In 2016, the government announced that the licence fee funding for the World Service would be £254 million/year for

756-479: A radio reception guide; and The Merchant Navy Programme , a show for seafarers presented by Malcolm Billings; The Morning Show , Good Morning Africa and PM , all presented by Pete Myers in the 1960s and 1970s. Since the late 1990s, the station has focused more on news, with bulletins added every half-hour following the outbreak of the Iraq War . News is at the core of the scheduling . A five-minute bulletin

840-681: A relay in Malaya and of the Limassol relay in Cyprus in 1957. Also in 1957, a number of foreign language services were discontinued, or reduced. In 1962, the Foreign Office argued that the VOA 's philosophy, as presented to it by its then director Henry Loomis , not to broadcast to fully-developed allied countries in their respective languages should be adopted by the BBC. The reluctance of

924-662: A seven-week run at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, with a month-long run at Merrimack Repertory Theatre to follow beginning in April 2014. In January 2014, some controversy surrounded the announcement of a performance of The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged) in at a borough-owned theatre in Newtownabbey , Northern Ireland: a Newtownabbey Borough Councillor from the Democratic Unionist Party decried

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1008-503: A six-part radio series called The Reduced Shakespeare Radio Show . It was broadcast on the BBC World Service from May 11 to June 22, 1994. In 1994 they also produced The Ring Reduced , a half-hour version of Richard Wagner 's operatic Ring Cycle , as part of Channel 4 's Wagner season. In 1995, the RSC recorded The Reduced Shakespeare Company Christmas , a take on Christmas and other December-related holidays . For

1092-481: A speech about how unappreciated William Shakespeare is and the third (Adam Long) giving a biography of Shakespeare mixed up with Adolf Hitler. They begin with a parody of Romeo and Juliet . Next, they caricature Titus Andronicus as a cooking show . Following that is Othello done as a rap song. The rest of the first act summarizes most of the other plays. All the comedies are combined into one convoluted reading (the justification being that they all recycle

1176-410: A week (via TV, radio and online). In November 2016, the BBC announced that it would start broadcasting in additional languages including Amharic and Igbo , in its biggest expansion since the 1940s. BBC World Service English maintains eight regional feeds with several programme variations, covering, respectively, East and Southern Africa ; West and Central Africa ; Europe and Middle East ;

1260-592: Is Jonathan Munro . The controller of the BBC World Service in English is Jon Zilkha. The BBC World Service began on 19 December 1932 as the BBC Empire Service , broadcasting on shortwave and aimed principally at English speakers across the British Empire . In his first Christmas Message (1932), King George V characterised the service as intended for "men and women, so cut off by the snow,

1344-493: Is also a failed attempt at scholarly discussion of the Shakespeare Apocrypha . At the end of the act, the characters realise that they forgot to perform Coriolanus which Adam refuses due to the vulgarity of the title, and also Hamlet , Shakespeare's epitome. Adam becomes nervous and petulant about performing the famous and difficult play, so he runs around the theatre and out the door chased by Jess. Daniel

1428-769: Is available up to eighteen hours a day in English across most parts of Asia, and in Arabic for the Middle East. With the addition of relays in Afghanistan and Iraq these services are accessible in most of the Middle and Near East in the evening. In Singapore, the BBC World Service in English is essentially treated as a domestic broadcaster, easily available 24/7 through long-term agreement with MediaCorp Radio . For many years Radio Television Hong Kong broadcast BBC World Service 24/7 but as of 12 February 2021, Hong Kong has banned

1512-622: Is broadcast at weekends. Other weekend sport shows include The Sports Hour and Stumped , a cricket programme co-produced with All India Radio and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation . On Sundays the international, interdisciplinary discussion programme The Forum is broadcast. Outlook is a human interest programme which was first broadcast in July 1966 and presented for more than thirty years by John Tidmarsh . Trending describes itself as "explaining

1596-497: Is generally transmitted at 01 past the hour, with a two-minute summary at 30 past the hour. Sometimes these are separate from other programming, or alternatively made integral to the programme (such as with The Newsroom , Newshour or Newsday ). In October 2024, it was announced that the bulletins would be broadcast on domestic BBC radio stations during the night. During such time slots as weeknights 11pm-12am GMT and that of Sportsworld , no news summaries are broadcast. As part of

1680-428: Is left alone to improvise before calling for intermission. After the intermission, Jess and Adam return, saving Daniel from having to cover the sonnets by writing them down on a 3x5 card and passing it around the audience. Adam is convinced to continue with the performance. The entire second act comprises Hamlet . The audience gets involved during this segment when one audience member is asked to portray Ophelia for

1764-526: Is located in the newer parts of the building, which contains radio and television studios for use by the overseas language services. The building also contains an integrated newsroom used by the international World Service, the international television channel BBC World News , the domestic television and radio BBC News bulletins, the BBC News Channel and BBC Online . At its launch, the Service

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1848-576: The 2008 Russian presidential election . Reporters Without Borders condemned the move as censorship. In 2011, BBC Kyrgyz service newsreader and producer Arslan Koichiev  [ ky ] resigned from his BBC post after revelations and claims of involvement in the Kyrgyzstan revolution of April 2010 . He had been based in London, but often travelled to Kyrgyzstan and used BBC resources to agitate against President Kurmanbek Bakiyev , appearing on

1932-540: The Americas and Caribbean ; East Asia ; South Asia ; Australasia ; and the United Kingdom . There are also two separate online-only streams, a general one and the other being more news-oriented, known as News Internet . The service broadcasts 24 hours a day. The World Service states that its aim is to be "the world's best-known and most-respected voice in international broadcasting", while retaining

2016-489: The BBC . It is the world's largest external broadcaster in terms of reception area, language selection and audience reach. It broadcasts radio news , speech and discussions in more than 40 languages to many parts of the world on analogue and digital shortwave platforms, internet streaming , podcasting , satellite , DAB , FM , LW and MW relays. In 2024, the World Service reached an average of 450 million people

2100-550: The Black September incidents of September 1970. These facilities were privatised in 1997 as Merlin Communications, and later acquired and operated as part of a wider network for multiple broadcasters by VT Communications (now part of Babcock International Group ). It is also common for BBC programmes to air on Voice of America or ORF transmitters, while their programming is relayed by a station located inside

2184-659: The British government 's decision to ban a documentary featuring an interview with Martin McGuinness of Sinn Féin . Subsequently, financial pressures decreased the number and the types of services offered by the BBC. Audiences in countries with wide access to Internet services have less need for terrestrial radio. Broadcasts in German ended in March 1999, after research showed that the majority of German listeners tuned into

2268-722: The Eastern Service during the Second World War. The Belgian government in exile broadcast from Radio Belgique . The 1956 Hungarian uprising held enormous implications for international radio broadcasting as it related to western foreign policy during the Cold War. Western broadcasts (especially the US's RFE ) incited an expectation of support that had already been decided against by President Eisenhower. The BBC, unlike other broadcasters, did not lose credibility in

2352-1035: The Folger Theatre in Washington DC in April/May 2016 to rave reviews, followed by the European premiere at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 2016. The RSC was listed in the 2017 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records for holding the Guinness record for the longest-running Shakespeare show in the West End with 3,744 performances between March 7, 1996 and April 3, 2005 at the Criterion Theatre; and for

2436-560: The Renaissance Pleasure Faire in Novato, California in the early 1980s. They presented an expanded version including Shakespeare's other plays at Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1987, and later at the Criterion Theatre in London, where it ran for nine years. The three actors introduce themselves to the audience, the first (Daniel Singer) reminding the audience not to record the show, the second (Jess Winfield) giving

2520-559: The Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Amnesty International. As a result, the council reversed its decision on January 27 and the performances went on as originally scheduled and received a rave review from the Belfast Telegraph . The publicity surrounding these events led to a huge boost in ticket sales for the entire 2014 UK tour of the show. The RSC premiered William Shakespeare's Long Lost First Play (abridged) at

2604-709: The Atlantic Relay Station and the Caribbean Relay Company, a station in Antigua run jointly with Deutsche Welle . In addition, an exchange agreement with Radio Canada International gave access to their station in New Brunswick . However, "changing listening habits" led the World Service to end shortwave radio transmission directed to North America and Australasia on 1 July 2001. A shortwave listener coalition formed to oppose

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2688-659: The BBC in the past. Mandarin was heavily jammed by the People's Republic of China until shortwave transmissions for that service ceased but China continues to jam transmissions in Uzbek and has since started to jam transmissions in English throughout Asia. The BBC World Service is broadcast in Berlin on 94.8 MHz. FM relays are also available in Ceske Budjovice, Karlovy Vary, Plzen, Usti nad Labem, Zlin and Prague in

2772-614: The BBC to drop those services was predicted also. On 1 May 1965, the service took its current name of BBC World Service . It expanded its reach with the opening of the Ascension Island relay in 1966, serving African audiences with a stronger signal and better reception, and with the later relay on the Island of Masirah in Oman. In August 1985, the service went off-air for the first time when workers went on strike in protest at

2856-513: The BBC's World Service radio from its airwaves, following swiftly on the heels of China's decision to bar its World News television channels, seemingly in retaliation for Ofcom revoking the UK broadcasting licence of China Global Television Network. In the Philippines , DZRJ 810 AM and its FM sister station RJFM 100.3 broadcasts the BBC World Service in English from 06:00 to 20:00 PHT from Mondays to Saturdays. Although this region has seen

2940-655: The BBC's policy for breaking news, the Service is the first to receive a full report for foreign news. BBC World Service is available by subscription to Sirius XM's satellite radio service in the United States. Its Canadian affiliate, Sirius XM Canada , does the same in Canada. More than 300 public radio stations across the US carry World Service news broadcasts—mostly during the overnight and early-morning hours—over AM and FM radio, distributed by American Public Media (APM). Some public radio stations also carry

3024-752: The British Foreign Secretary in a document named the BBC World Service Licence. The Chair of the BBC Board and the Foreign Secretary (or representatives) meet at least annually to review performance against these objectives, priorities and targets. The World Service was funded for decades by grant-in-aid through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office until 1 April 2014. Since then it has been funded by

3108-580: The Church of St. Martin in the Fields , weekly drama, English-language lessons, and comedy including Just A Minute . Other notable previous programmes include Letter from America by Alistair Cooke , which was broadcast for over fifty years; Off the Shelf with its daily reading from a novel, biography or history book; A Jolly Good Show , a music request programme presented by Dave Lee Travis ; Waveguide ,

3192-655: The English service, 18 of the language services broadcast a radio service using the short wave , AM or FM bands. These are also available to listen live or can be listened to later (usually for seven days) over the Internet and, in the case of seven language services, can be downloaded as podcasts . News is also available from the BBC News 'app', which is available from both iTunes and the Google Play Store . In recent years, video content has also been used by

3276-712: The English-language service. Broadcasts in Dutch , Finnish , French, Hebrew , Italian, Japanese and Malay stopped for similar reasons. On 25 October 2005, the BBC announced that broadcasts in Bulgarian , Croatian , Czech , Greek , Hungarian, Kazakh , Polish, Slovak , Slovene and Thai would end by March 2006, to finance the launch in 2007 of television news services in Arabic and Persian . Additionally, Romanian broadcasts ceased on 1 August 2008. In 2007,

3360-683: The Foreign Office budget). The External Services broadcast propaganda during the Second World War , on the German-language service Londoner Rundfunk  [ de ] especially against Nazi rule, believed in the early days of the war at least to have weak support. Its French service Radio Londres also sent coded messages to the French Resistance . George Orwell broadcast many news bulletins on

3444-408: The Nunnery Scene. The rest of the audience makes up Ophelia's subconscious , divided into three sections representing her ego, superego, and id . After the performance of Hamlet , the actors repeat it several times increasing their speed of delivery, and finish by reciting it backwards. BBC World Service The BBC World Service is an international broadcaster owned and operated by

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3528-437: The Reduced Shakespeare Company recorded its second show on DVD, The Complete History of America (abridged) . Martin and Tichenor's second book, Reduced Shakespeare: The Attention Impaired Reader's Guide to the World's Best Playwright (abridged) was published by Hyperion in 2006. The Reduced Shakespeare Company Podcast was also introduced in 2006. It is a free, weekly twenty-minute podcast available on iTunes , as well as on

3612-413: The Reduced Shakespeare Company website. The Reduced Shakespeare Company has been nominated for an Olivier Award in London, two Helen Hayes Awards, a Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award, and two Podcast Awards. The company won a Shorty Award for Outstanding Use of Twitter by a Cultural Institution in 2009. In 2010 Martin & Tichenor reduced the first five season of the hit television series Lost into

3696-635: The Service from the Foreign Office, so that it would in future have been funded from within licence-fee income. The Russian, Ukrainian, Mandarin Chinese, Turkish, Vietnamese and Spanish for Cuba services ceased radio broadcasting, and the Hindi, Indonesian, Kyrgyz, Nepali, Swahili, Kinyarwanda and Kirundi services ceased shortwave transmissions. As part of the 16% budget cut, 650 jobs were eliminated. In 2012, London staff moved from Bush House to Broadcasting House , so co-located with other BBC News departments. About 35% of its 1,518 full-time equivalent staff in 2014 were based overseas at 115 locations. From 2014

3780-437: The Service relied on shortwave broadcasts, because of their ability to overcome barriers of censorship, distance, and spectrum scarcity. The BBC has maintained a worldwide network of shortwave relay stations since the 1940s, mainly in former British colonies. These cross-border broadcasts have also been used in special circumstances for emergency messages to British subjects abroad, such as the advice to evacuate Jordan during

3864-421: The UK government announced that it was reducing the service’s revenue funding by 16% and its capital funding by 52% by 2017. This necessitated over 650 staff leaving. Funding from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office would end in April 2014, when funding would mainly be from the television licence fee. From 2010, the service started transforming from a mainly radio-based operation to multi-media. In January 2011,

3948-428: The UK. However, since the 1980s, satellite distribution has made it possible for local stations to relay BBC programmes. BBC World Service is not regulated by Ofcom as the BBC generally is. Instead, the BBC is responsible for editorial independence and setting strategic direction. It defines the remit, scope, annual budget and main commitments of the World Service, and agrees "objectives, targets and priorities" with

4032-533: The US and UK, and has performed in Belgium, Netherlands, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, China, Singapore, Barbados, Bermuda, Israel, Qatar and Ireland. The Reduced Shakespeare Company is also heard on NPR and the BBC . The company was founded in 1981 by Daniel Singer , who wrote a 25-minute, four-actor version of William Shakespeare 's Hamlet , to be performed at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire in Novato, California . He cast himself as Polonius, Horatio, and Laertes; Jess Borgeson (now Jess Winfield) as

4116-401: The USA and Great Britain with runs at the New Victory Theater in New York City, the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, and the Arts Theatre in London. The RSC premiered The Ultimate Christmas (abridged) in 2011 at Merrimack Repertory Theatre in Lowell, MA and performed the show at San Diego Repertory Theatre in 2012. In November 2013 The Complete History of Comedy (abridged) premiered with

4200-467: The World Service in its entirety via HD Radio . The BBC and Public Radio International (PRI) co-produce the programme The World with WGBH Radio Boston , and the BBC was previously involved with The Takeaway morning news programme based at WNYC in New York City . BBC World Service programming also airs as part of CBC Radio One 's CBC Radio Overnight schedule in Canada. BBC shortwave broadcasts to this region were traditionally enhanced by

4284-430: The World Service's largest audiences have been in Asia, the Middle East, Near East and South Asia. Transmission facilities in the UK and Cyprus were supplemented by the former BBC Eastern Relay Station in Oman and the Far Eastern Relay Station in Singapore, formerly in Malaysia. The East Asian Relay Station moved to Thailand in 1997 when Hong Kong was handed over to Chinese sovereignty. The relay station in Thailand

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4368-484: The World Service. This table lists the various language services operated by the BBC World Service with start and closure dates, where known/applicable. The World Service in English mainly broadcasts news and analysis. The mainstays of the current schedule are Newsday , Newshour and The Newsroom . Daily science programmes include: Health Check , and Science in Action . Sportsworld , which often includes live commentary of Premier League football matches

4452-424: The World Service: 16 language services show video reports on the website, and the Arabic and Persian services have their own television channels. TV is also used to broadcast the radio service, with local cable and satellite operators providing the English network (and occasionally some local language services) free to air. The English service is also available on digital radio in the UK and Europe. Traditionally,

4536-407: The area where the play is being performed. Also, the authors' notes strongly encourage performers to update outdated references and jokes so that the material doesn't come off as out of touch. As a result, performances differ, even with the same cast . The writers, Long, Singer, and Winfield—founding members of the Reduced Shakespeare Company —performed a "reduced" version of Hamlet at

4620-445: The change. The BBC broadcasts to Central America and South America in several languages. It is possible to receive the Western African shortwave radio broadcasts from eastern North America, but the BBC does not guarantee reception in this area. It has ended its specialist programming to the Falkland Islands but continues to provide a stream of World Service programming to the Falkland Islands Radio Service . For several decades,

4704-431: The closure of the Albanian, Macedonian, and Serbian, as well as English for the Caribbean and Portuguese for Africa, services was announced. The British government announced that the three Balkan countries had wide access to international information, and so broadcasts in the local languages had become unnecessary. This decision reflected the financial situation the Corporation faced following transfer of responsibility for

4788-403: The crisis. It showed sensitivity and acted as its own censor when diplomacy may have been jeopardised otherwise. In stark contrast stood the BBC's reporting on the Suez Crisis of the same year. Although the British government tried to censor the BBC, it continued its even-handed reporting to both home as well as all foreign audiences. The row had the government seriously consider taking over

4872-415: The desert, or the sea, that only voices out of the air can reach them". First hopes for the Empire Service were low. The Director-General , Sir John Reith , said in the opening programme: Don't expect too much in the early days; for some time we shall transmit comparatively simple programmes, to give the best chance of intelligible reception and provide evidence as to the type of material most suitable for

4956-420: The end of 1940, completing the move in 1941, with the Overseas services joining them in 1958. Bush House subsequently became the home of the BBC World Service and the building itself has gained a global reputation with the audience of the service. However, the building was vacated in 2012 as a result of the Broadcasting House redevelopment and the end of the building's lease that year; the first service to move

5040-402: The end of 1942, the BBC had started broadcasts in all major European languages. The Empire Service was renamed the BBC Overseas Service in November 1939, supplemented by the addition of a dedicated BBC European Service from 1941. Funding for these services—known administratively as the External Services of the BBC —came not from the domestic licence fee but from government grant-in-aid (from

5124-402: The famous Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland . The ideal show length being about an hour, they decided they needed about 20 more minutes of material, and proposed doing Shakespeare's other 35 plays to round out an abridgement of everything the bard wrote in less than one hour. Sa Thomson (now Sa Winfield), brought on to design and fabricate the troupe's quick-change props and costumes, became

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5208-439: The five years from 2017. From 2016 to 2022, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office contributed over £470 million to the World Service via its World 2020 Programme, about 80% of which is categorised as Overseas Development Assistance, amounting to about a quarter of the World Service budget. In November 2022, the government confirmed the continuing involvement of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in funding

5292-413: The highest theatrical performance, for their performance aboard an EasyJet flight from London to Verona on Shakespeare’s birthday in 2014. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) (also known as The Compleat Wrks of Wllm Shkspr (Abridged) ) is a play written by Adam Long , Daniel Singer , and Jess Winfield . It parodies

5376-445: The last FM broadcast of BBC News Russian was discontinued at the order of the Russian government. Finam owned Bolshoye Radio, the last of three services to drop the BBC Russia broadcasts. A spokesman for the organization claimed that 'any media which is government-financed is propaganda – it's a fact, it's not negative'. Reports put the development in the context of criticism of the Russian government for curbing media freedom ahead of

5460-403: The launch of the only two foreign language television channels, several other services have had their radio services closed as a result of budget cuts and redirection of resources. Japan and Korea have little tradition of World Service listening, although during the Second World War and in the 1970s to 1980s, shortwave listening was popular in Japan. In those two countries, the BBC World Service

5544-427: The line-up for the final three years of the London run. Singer left the Company in 1989 and was replaced by Reed Martin; Borgeson left in 1992 and was replaced by Austin Tichenor. In 1993 Long, Martin and Tichenor wrote the company's second play, The Complete History of America (abridged) . They followed this up with The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged) in 1995. In 1994 Tichenor, Long and Martin created

5628-409: The long-established shortwave frequency of 9.74 MHz was changed to 9.9 MHz. The largest audiences are in English, Hindi , Urdu , Nepali , Bengali , Sinhala , Tamil , Marathi and other major languages of South Asia, where BBC broadcasters are household names. The Persian service is the de facto national broadcaster of Afghanistan , along with its Iranian audience. The World Service

5712-457: The performance and become characters themselves. The script contains many humorous footnotes on the text that are often not included in the performance. However, improvisation plays an important role and it is normal for the actors to deviate from the script and have spontaneous conversations about the material with each other or the audience. It is also common for them to make references to pop culture or to talk about local people and places in

5796-471: The plays of William Shakespeare with all of them being performed in comically shortened or merged form by only three actors. Typically, the actors use their real names and play themselves rather than specific characters. The fourth wall is nonexistent in the performance , with the actors speaking directly to the audience during much of the play, and some scenes involve audience participation. The director and stage crew may also be directly involved in

5880-418: The prince; Michael Fleming as Bernardo, Claudius, and the Ghost of Hamlet's father; and Barbara Reinertson as Ophelia and Gertrude. When Reinertson broke her ankle three weeks into the run, Borgeson suggested that school chum Adam Long fill in for her in drag . Borgeson returned to college in 1983 to pursue a degree in English literature , leaving Singer and Long to continue under the RSC banner. They penned

5964-533: The same plot devices anyway). The histories are portrayed as an American football game with the British Crown as the football (or as a soccer match in at least one German production, or an Australian Rules football game in an Australian production). Julius Caesar is shortened to his death, followed immediately by a brief Antony and Cleopatra , and Macbeth abridged to one duel while explaining all about ketchup and mustard and other elements (witches, Macbeth's downfall, etc.) in poor Scottish accents. There

6048-471: The service became part of World Service Group under the Director of BBC News and Current Affairs. From 2016, 1,100 additional staff were recruited as part of an expansion of the World Service, about a 70% increase, funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office providing £254 million/year for five years, partly a reversal of the government decision that the television licence fee would fund

6132-401: The service from 2014. This was the biggest service expansion since World War II . In 2022, a new London-based China unit was in development, described by the government as "focused on exposing the challenges and realities currently facing China and its fight for global influence". The Service broadcasts from Broadcasting House in London, which is also headquarters of the corporation. It

6216-499: The service in each zone. The programmes will neither be very interesting nor very good. This address was read out five times as the BBC broadcast it live to different parts of the world. Recording from original BBC archive disks YouTube The BBC would continue to claim independence from the Government during the war, but as Asa Briggs noted, a complete picture of the wartime BBC would have to include 'persistent references' to

6300-460: The service when then prime minister Anthony Eden wanted to ensure that only the government line—that the British and French only invaded Eqypt to keep peace and because its president Nasser was breaking international law—would reach the home (and international) audience. By the end of the 1940s, the number of broadcast languages had expanded and reception had improved, following the opening of

6384-536: The shows blasphemous nature, saying "I'd be calling for public pressure to have it pulled. My wife, councillor Audrey Ball, has recently been put on the artistic board" and that "Those against her strong beliefs better watch out." On January 23, 2014 the Newtownabbey Borough Council voted to cancel the performances. This decision led to tremendous public outcry and show support for the RSC from many sources including Richard Dawkins, Tim Minchin,

6468-594: The stories the world is sharing..." Regular music programmes were reintroduced with the autumn schedule in 2015. Many programmes, particularly speech-based ones, are also available as podcasts. Business Daily is a weekday live international business news programme, which broadcasts from 8:32:30am to 8:59:00am UK time from Broadcasting House in London. Previous broadcasts included popular music programmes presented by John Peel and classical music programmes presented by Edward Greenfield . There have also been religious programmes, of mostly Anglican celebration and often from

6552-454: The troupe in 1985, and so Singer's version of Hamlet was resurrected into the repertoire. Several actors had come and gone in the roles of Bernardo, the Ghost, and Claudius; the last in the series excused himself when his daughter was born. The three-man RSC was born at that time, with Long taking over those roles. In 1987, a friend of the company suggested that they'd find a welcome reception at

6636-563: The turn of the century Martin and Tichenor wrote The Complete Millennium Musical (abridged) along with composer Nick Graham. A video version of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) was released on DVD in 2001. Also in 2001, John Knox/Westminster Press published Martin and Tichenor's comic, spiritual memoir entitled The Greatest Story Ever Sold. In August 2005, at the Sebastiani Theatre in Sonoma, California ,

6720-554: The various connected agencies of the government. Chiefly, the Political Warfare Executive , responsible for all broadcasts to Europe. On 3 January 1938, the first foreign-language service was launched—in Arabic. Programmes in German, Italian and French began broadcasting on 27 September 1938 projecting the British quest for peace in the days prior to the conference on the Munich Agreement . By

6804-620: Was closed during January 2017, and in Singapore during July 2023; currently, a relay station in Masirah , Oman serves the Asian region. Together, these facilities have given the BBC World Service an easily accessible signal in regions where shortwave listening has traditionally been popular. The English shortwave frequencies of 6.195 (49m band), 9.74 (31m band), 15.31/15.36 (19m band) and 17.76/17.79 (16m band) were widely known. On 25 March 2018,

6888-519: Was located along with most radio output in Broadcasting House. However, following the explosion of a parachute mine nearby on 8 December 1940, it relocated to premises away from the likely target of Broadcasting House. The Overseas service relocated to Oxford Street while the European service moved temporarily to the emergency broadcasting facilities at Maida Vale Studios . The European services moved permanently into Bush House towards

6972-522: Was only available via shortwave and the Internet. As of September 2007, a satellite transmission (subscription required) became available by Skylife (Channel 791) in South Korea. In November 2016, the BBC World Service announced it plans to start broadcasts in Korean. BBC Korean , a radio and web service, started on 25 September 2017. The Soviet Union, Iran, Iraq and Myanmar /Burma have all jammed

7056-551: Was the Burmese Service on 11 March 2012 and the final broadcast from Bush House was a news bulletin broadcast at 11.00 GMT on 12 July 2012. The BBC World Service encompasses an English 24-hour global radio network and separate services in 27 other languages. News and information is available in these languages on the BBC website , with many having RSS feeds and specific versions for use on mobile devices, and some also offer email notification of stories. In addition to

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