The BBC has been accused of sexing up Shakespeare after introducing raunchy sex scenes to the latest instalment of The Hollow Crown, a £6 million adaptation of four of the Bard's history plays.

英国广播公司被指将情色引入莎士比亚作品，因为BBC在《空王冠》系列的最新一部中加入了露骨的激情戏。《空王冠》改编自四部莎翁历史剧，拍摄耗资600万英镑。
 

The Wars of the Roses, a trilogy starring Benedict Cumberbatch as the murderous Richard III, will show Henry VI's wife Margaret, played by Sophie Okonedo, romping with Ben Miles's Duke of Somerset, despite the fact that the passages do not appear in the original plays.

The epic productions form the centrepiece of the corporation's celebrations of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death. The sex scenes are overlaid with the murder of another major character, with the moans of the lovers alternating with the screams of the man being hacked to death.

Ben Power, who adapted the plays for the BBC, admitted that he had invented the scenes. Asked at a BFI screening whether they were necessary, he said: "There is definitely no doubt in the full-length play that they are involved in a sexual relationship."

Dominic Cook‎e, who directed the trilogy, added: "For me it was really important that you saw this union between these two people - a kind of metaphor for their corruption."

In Shakespeare's time, the female roles would have been played by boys. Professor Michael Dobson, director of Birmingham University's Shakespeare Institute, said: "On-stage sex between boy actors wasn't really encouraged in the 1590s. But it sounds like the BBC is carrying on exactly the way the plays were going in the first place."