Yorick skulls and brooding speeches at the ready: BBC2 have announced they’ll be broadcasting the stage production of Hamlet starring Sherlock's Andrew Scott.

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Airing next year, the channel will give home audiences a front row view of the play directed by the multi award-winning Robert Icke, which was transferred to the Harold Pinter Theatre in London’s West End after a sell-out run at the Almeida.

The man who played Moriarty in the BBC super-sleuth series stars alongside Angus Wright (Peep Show), Jessica Brown Findlay (Downton Abbey) and Juliet Stevenson (Accused).

“It has been a real joy to work with such a gifted and dedicated company of actors on bringing this most-famous play to audiences in 2017,” Icke said. “To be able to offer our version of Hamlet to as wide and diverse an audience as possible has always been of paramount importance to us, and now we are thrilled to be able to bring it to people across the country.”

Patrick Holland, Controller of BBC2, said: “Andrew Scott's Hamlet is utterly thrilling. His performance makes each familiar word of the play feel like it is being newly discovered. The staging in a modern-day Denmark makes for a startlingly resonant and challenging production. I am delighted that it is coming to BBC2.”

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Scott will follow in the footsteps of Sherlock co-star Benedict Cumberbatch who starred in the role at the Barbican two years ago, and David Tennant, whose Hamlet was broadcast by the BBC in 2009. Tom Hiddleston is also due to play the Danish prince in a three-week run at RADA's Chenies Street site in London this September.

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