Russell T Davies has defended his decision to add a lesbian kiss to A Midsummer Night’s Dream because “it’s 2016″.

The former Doctor Who showrunner has adapted Shakespeare’s comedy into a BBC TV movie – but diverging from the original, Titania and Hippolyta share a kiss at the end.

Russell T Davies (Ian West)
Russell T Davies (Ian West)

He said: “My feeling about the end of the play is that Titania is submissive to Oberon and he gets away with his tricks.

“It’s very male-female, male-female, so I wanted to have a man with a man, a man who was dressed as a woman with a man, and a woman with a woman because it’s 2016, so that’s the world now.

“I wanted children to watch this and see the real world in the middle of this fantasy.”

Midsummer Night’s Dream stars Maxine Peake as lovelorn fairy queen Titania, John Hannah as King Theseus and Little Britain star Matt Lucas in the comical role of Bottom.

Maxine Peake (Ian West)
Maxine Peake (Ian West)

In this version, due to air on BBC One at the end of May, Theseus is killed and Flute’s speech becomes a lament for the king as he is dying.

He said Shakespeare plays had been constantly reworked – and so the Bard’s fans should not be offended by the re-interpretation.

“If you’re a Shakespeare purist, it means you’re in love with imagination and drama and truth and fun and honesty,” he said.

“The plays reinvent themselves constantly, every generation does them differently, so if there’s a problem kiss me instead!”

A cyberman and Russell T Davies are seen at a screening of the Christmas Doctor Who episode. (Ian West/PA Archive/Press Association Images )
A cyberman and Russell T Davies are seen at a screening of the Christmas Doctor Who episode. (Ian West/PA Archive/Press Association Images)

He said it was “quite daunting” to re-imagine Shakespeare.

He said: “There’s something sacred about when you sit down at a computer and you’re looking at words that have been sat there for 400 years, and I did genuinely feel strange. But you’ve just got to do it.”

The TV producer and screenwriter also revealed an awkward encounter with a taxi driver – who thought he had been working on the detective drama Midsomer Murders.

He said: “I was in a taxi yesterday and the driver said to me, ‘What are you working on at the moment Russell?’ and I said, ‘I’ve just done A Midsummer Night’s Dream’.

“And he went, ‘Oh, my wife loves that show!’”