Maxine Peake's punk-style Titania

NOT everyone has a lifelong love affair with Shakespeare – adaptor Russell T Davies has had a 40-year dream to create a radically different version of the Bard’s most popular play – and Titania-playing Maxine Peake tells Radio Times she didn’t utter a word of the playwright’s work at school or Rada.

“I didn’t perform Shakespeare at school, but I did watch Polanski’s Macbeth,” she says. Now, she’s clad in leather-style body armour, swirling tattoos and a partially-shaved head to become a punk-inspired queen of the Athens’ forest fairies.

For Davies, who famously reinvented Doctor Who, knew that the key to creating a tribute to Shakespeare was signing a dream cast capable of appealing to the whole family. Thus, the impressive line-up includes everyone from Matt Lucas and Peake to John Hannah and Bernard Cribbins. "For years I've thought, one day I will do it on television, I will do it with an all-star cast, and I will do it for everyone," says Davies.

With a breastplate creating “the biggest pair of bosoms you’ve ever seen”, Peake feels that Davies always had one eye on making the play relevant to a new generation.

“It’s brilliant because it’s got Russell in there – mischievous and clever and fun and warm and witty, and challenging as well. And if you get a younger audience interested at the right age, they know if can be fun,” says Peake, who also applauds the use of CGI and prosthetics at Cardiff’s Roath Lock Studios.

“It’s great that we’re doing it with Russell and the Doctor Who hit-making factory. You’ve got all the special effects, flying and thunderbolts. We’re so reverential to Shakespeare. I think you should look at it as a new play. You say, ‘That’s been said once, so you can cut that’. Ninety minutes is perfect. That’s how long Shakespeare should be. You get all the best bits and the story is really clever and it’s just fun – that was one of the attractions really.”

That said, Peake has recently become one of the few women to play Hamlet but still feels that young people are missing out, like she did.

“I think if you catch people’s imagination young enough, then they’ll dip into the other plays. They find out what a great playwright he really is.”

The plot surrounds ruler Theseus planning to marry Hippolyta, the Queen of the Amazons - and young Hermia faces death if she doesn't wed the suitor her father has picked out for her.

In the town, a group of “rude mechanicals”, including Bottom, are rehearsing their own play, a unique take on the tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe. And in the woods, a spat between Oberon and Titania, the King and Queen of the Fairies, is going to have consequences for the humans.

Springwatch 2016 (BBC2, 8pm)

New series. Chris Packham, Michaela Strachan and Martin Hughes-Games are back at RSPB Minsmere in Suffolk as they return with the programme that follows the fortunes of wildlife around the UK, getting to know the badgers, otters, marsh harriers, avocets and other animals that live around the nature reserve. Plus, Iolo Williams is on the Farne Islands in Northumberland, which will be his home for the next three weeks. Last year Spineless Simon the stickleback was the star of the show, but who will it be this time?

Heathrow: Britain's Busiest Airport (ITV, 9pm)

New series. The return of the documentary exploring life behind the scenes at the airport. Heavy fog throws Heathrow into turmoil and new terminal manager Callum is faced with hundreds of angry and stranded passengers stuck overnight at the airport, while visibility has dropped to less than 100m on the airfield and safety officer Chris is forced to marshal planes. Manager Nilam reveals the secrets of one of Heathrow's most exclusive first-class lounge and dispatcher James and his team hunt around the terminal for late passengers.

Viv Hardwick