TV drama on Hawking
Professor Stephen Hawking's battle with motor neurone disease is to be made into a TV drama.
The BBC2 film will focus on Hawking's early years as an ambitious PhD student at Cambridge University.
It will tell how doctors diagnosed him with the degenerative illness at the age of 21 and gave him just two years to live.
Hawking, now 61, went on to defy their prognosis and achieved worldwide success with his bestselling book, A Brief History Of Time.
He will be played in the drama by Benedict Cumberbatch, who appeared in Cambridge Spies and Tipping The Velvet, and most recently played Hugh Laurie's son in Fortysomething.
The drama begins filming in Cambridge and London this month and will be broadcast next year. It will be directed by Philip Martin, who made the acclaimed documentary series Stephen Hawking's Universe.
John Lynch, creative director of BBC Science, said: "Stephen Hawking is one of the greatest theoretical physicists of the modern era.
"Through his books he has opened up the world of physics and cosmology to millions of ordinary people and yet little is known of his life before he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease.
"Now we have the opportunity to tell his story, with Stephen's collaboration."
