King Lear - Review

Wyndhams Theatre, London

****

Written by William Shakespeare

Directed by Kenneth Branagh

Kenneth Branagh and Jessica Revell

Kenneth Branagh’s take on King Lear is an intelligent interpretation of one of Shakespeare’s most powerful tragedies. Branagh’s treatment of the text is bold creating an amalgam of the play’s first published Folio and Quarto versions, then filleting out the narrative he considers superfluous. Not quite a King Lear Lite, but Branagh shaves a fair hour off the typical running time, bringing the show in at just under two hours with no interval.

For the most part the edits work. Amongst other clippings the courtroom scene in the hovel is chopped as is Lear’s comment on Cordelia’s quietly-spoken voice being “an excellent thing in woman”. But to be fair Branagh has trimmed wisely, maintaining the integrity of the narrative around Lear and his daughters, together with the sub-plot surrounding Gloucester and his sons. The play’s most famous quotes are (mostly) all there and in a time that has frequently seen the Bard’s prose butchered at Shakespeare’s Globe, Branagh treats the original with respect. 

On stage, Branagh is an excellent King Lear. There is weight and pathos to his words, with his curse of sterility on Goneril together with his grief in the final act, being fine examples of a well considered interpretation. His daughters are fun too. Melanie-Joyce Bermudez is a vicious Regan and Deborah Alli is an equally Ugly Sister as Goneril. There is a fine interpretation of Cordelia from Jessica Revell also doubling up as the Fool, who catches the complex sentiments of both her roles with a delightful accuracy. Doug Colling and Corey Mylchreest put in sound turns as Edgar and Edmund respectively, while Joseph Kloska’s Gloucester is deliciously done, vile jellies bouncing across the stage as his eyes are plucked out.

Jon Bausor’s designs together with Nina Dunn’s projections offer an original view of the Neolithic era in which the production is set, though the dancing and battling with staves is perhaps a little overplayed given the otherwise ruthless editing of the script.

Virtually sold out for the run, Branagh has delivered a King Lear for our times. 

Runs until 9th December

Photo credit: Johan Persson

King Lear - Review

Shakespeare's Globe

***

Written by William Shakespeare

Directed by Helena Kaut-Howson

Kathryn Hunter and Michelle Terry

Returning to the title role after 25 years (and back then in a production also directed by Helena Kaut-Howson), Kathryn Hunter leads in King Lear at Shakespeare’s Globe. That she is a woman in a man’s role, proves to be of little impediment to her delivery, and there is an authenticity to her take on the aged, dementia-raddled monarch that works well. The flaw in Hunter’s performance turns out to be not her sex, but rather her ability to master Shakespeare’s verse. Some of Lear’s words are amongst the most profound in the canon yet especially in the evening’s first half, Hunter races through her speeches offering two-dimensional deliveries too often rather than thoughtful interpretations of the prose. There is an Alf Garnett / Mel Brooks-like mania to her Lear that sees her play the role unnecessarily, inappropriately (and quite possibly, unintentionally) for laughs. And her howls at the death of Cordelia, surely one of the most gut-wrenching moments ever penned, lack pathos.  

Michelle Terry, the venue’s artistic director lands herself the curious casting combination of Cordelia and the Fool. To her credit, she makes a decent job of both, even if Kaut-Howson has decided the Fool’s departure from the story should be elevated to a moment of melodramatic death. Other than Lear’s penultimate lament that his “poor fool is hanged”, or reasons of economy, there is little to justify the fusion of these two roles into the same performer.

Some of the acting is fine and gripping. Ryan Donaldson as Edmund, Marianne Oldham’s Reagan and especially Diego Matamoros as Gloucester turn in fine performances. Matamoros in particular is deeply moving after his blinding. Elsewhere however there is under-performance and, too often, tedium. At 200 minutes including interval, weak performances make the narrative drag, and that's even without the addition of a great stage of fools as the entire cast rise from the dead to give an unnecessary post-finale display of country dancing.

Kaut-Howson was sadly caught up in a car accident that kept her away from the play’s final two weeks of rehearsals. Whether this absence contributed to the production’s lack of lustre one may never know, but this is not one of London's great King Lears.

Runs until 24th July

Photo credit: Johan Persson

Butchers - Review

****

Written by Adrian Langley and Daniel Weissenberger
Directed by Adrian Langley

Simon Phillips as Owen Watson, one of the titular butchers

With a DVD release on March 8, timed to coincide with the UK's National Butchers Week, Adrian Langley's Butchers is a fantastic example of the vision and ingenuity of today’s independent film makers.

In a storyline that sees Wrong Turn meeting The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Butchers offers up a string of bright young North Americans who one by one fall victim to a backwards back-woods clan, somewhere out in Canada's mid-west. As might be expected from the title, the formulaic plot sees cleavers, axes and cleverly shot offal featuring heavily amongst the props and effects.

Langley, who not only directs but has co-written, photographed, edited and scored the picture too, throws in some novel twists. There is infidelity amongst our heroes, as well as a number of amusingly unexpected Shakespearean references with Hamlet, King Lear and of course, that greatest butcher of them all, Titus Andronicus getting a nod.

The cast do a fine job of telling this overly familiar nightmare, but notwithstanding their performances, this movie’s standout feature is its attention to technical detail. Not only is the cinematography exciting and well lit, but Langley’s music is brilliantly balanced while throughout Howard Sonnenburg’s sound mixing – be it with the score or the sound effect of metal through flesh  - is equally precise. The story may be corny and predictable, but it is a credit to Langley’s cast and crew that they make it so compelling and suspenseful, exactly what good horror should be. What’s more, there appears to be little if any digital contribution to the story’s visuals with the SFX duo of Jonathan Largy and Alina Suave delivering the gore in its authentic physicality, their gruesome work only enhanced by Sonnenburg’s sound.

Largy himself is rewarded with the corniest of cameos in the finale – but to be honest he’s earned it.

Available on digital download from 22 February and on DVD release from March 8th.

King Lear (at Chichester) - Review

Minerva Theatre, Chichester

*****

Written by William Shakespeare

Directed by Jonathan Munby

Ian McKellen and Tamara Lawrance

King Lear at the Minerva Theatre is the jewel in the crown of Daniel Evans’ opening season as Chichester’s Artistic Director. Ian McKellen is every inch a king in Jonathan Munby’s production that is currently playing a short, sold out season. Staged unpretentiously in modern dress, the court of this King Lear bears the accoutrements of the 21st century, yet still respects and celebrates the beauty of the mediaeval verse.

At 78, McKellen brings a credibility of age that only underscores this definitive interpretation, bringing a masterful touch to Lear’s mental decline - “Oh let me not be mad” has rarely carried so much pathos. It is however the strength of the company around McKellen that adds the lustre to this, the finest of recent King Lear productions. 

Dervla Kirwan’s Goneril flinches as her father curses her with sterility, in a performance of understated excellence. Modestly dressed (in contrast to her sister), Goneril’s murderous malevolence is masterful. Kirsty Bushell’s Regan, by contrast, is a sometimes scantily clad, Louboutin toting, femme fatale. The zest with which she accompanies Patrick Robinson’s Cornwall in ripping out Gloucester’s (Danny Webb) eyes with a butcher’s hook could be straight out of a grindhouse movie, but is never once overplayed. (Bravo to fight director Kate Waters for work that is, as ever, bloody good!) 

And that lack of overplay is the essence of this show’s class. Damien Molony’s Edmund is a role that is too often played to as a calculating pantomime villain. Here, Molony’s soft Irish brogue offers an Edmund imbued with an embellished evil that again comes with a classy credibility.

Tamara Lawrance’s Cordelia creates a particularly distinctive magic with Lear in their Act 4 reconciliation. Her talent combined with McKellen’s aged genius offers a moment of tenderness that is, again, rarely achieved.

A highlight of the production - certainly for this reviewer - is to see Phil Daniels return to the role of Fool. Daniels last played the Fool at Exeter in 1980, a production that I had the privilege of seeing. He was 20 then and fresh out of the success of Franc Roddam’s Mod movie Quadrophenia, bringing a cheekily youthful mania to his nuncle-baiting. That boy has now grown up into a bespectacled, tank-top sporting man (think Ronnie Corbett, but taller) and in this coming of age, Daniels brings a level of nuance to the Fool that is rarely (if ever) seen. Daniels still sports his coxcomb magnificently, but now his mirth belies a profound and troubling worldly wisdom and in an inspired touch, Munby has him sing his (many) songs, self-accompanied on the ukulele. It's a music hall touch, juxtaposed onto a modern interpretation of a century's old play and it works perfectly.

Phil Daniels

The Fool’s exit from the play has long been a source of debate as Shakespeare famously leaves it vague in the text. Here however, Munby has had some fun, introducing his own little kicker just before the interval ice-creams.

And again, in one of the play’s smaller roles, Michael Matus delivers a pompously priggish Oswald, making more of the obsequious functionary than is typically encountered in the play.

This is also a King Lear that having freed itself from the constraints of racial and gender specific casting loses none of the play’s impact in the process. Indeed the modernity of Munby’s staging lends itself to a bonfire of traditional casting stereotypes. Most distinctive amongst these translations is Sinead Cusack’s Countess of Kent, in place of that county’s traditional Duke. Cusack brings a steely kindliness to the role which opens up a different and rather enchanting take upon the loving devotion she shows towards Lear. 

Notwithstanding the contemporary staging, Munby spares us any heavy-handed spin on the ancient yarn, allowing us space to draw our own contemporary political comparisons. 

“See better, Lear” is how Kent admonishes his King in Act 1. I doubt there'll be a better Lear to see, and for some time. 

Runs until 28th October (sold out)

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

King Lear - Review

Barbican Theatre, London

*****

Written by William Shakespeare

Directed by Gregory Doran

Antony Sher and David Troughton

Transferring in to London from Stratford, Antony Sher's Lear is a Shakespearean masterclass. With no headline-grabbing casting to this, one of Shakespeare's greatest works, the production is a company-driven gem that is led by the RSC's seasoned bill-topper who's more than earned the right to make the role his own.

Doran plays it just a little bit fast and loose with his time zones. There's a pre-Christian paganism to the whole affair, that's punctuated only by a disconcerting (even if rather wonderful) grindhouse-inspired, fluorescently lit glass box for Gloucester’s glorious blinding scene.

There's also a disappointingly politically correct approach to some of the text. Lear tells us on Cordelia's death that her voice was indeed ever "soft, gentle and low", however the Bard's next line, declaring such qualities "an excellent thing in woman” has been shamefully chopped by Doran. Likewise the Fool (fine work from Graham Turner), who typically bows out with an enigmatic reference to his bedtime, is here imbued with an additional dozen or so lines that wistfully lead the audience into the interval.

That juxtaposition means of course that the second half kicks off with act three's final scene and as mentioned above, it's an absolute blinder. There's nothing quite like arcs of blood and smeared vile jelly to truly make one appreciate that interval G&T or vanilla tub!

But enough of the rip-roaring violence (and Bret Yount’s swordfight direction is excellent too), what makes this Lear one of the greats is the sheer beauty of the actors' craft. Sher is clad in majestic robes of thick animal skin, truly looking every inch the king – making the sight of him reduced to a vest and long johns in the latter scenes of his decline, all the more pitiful.

More than just the visuals though, Sher's mastery of the prose is unsurpassed. For years he has been honing his craft on the greatest works in English literature and there is a palpable sense of a pinnacle being attained in his performance. Rarely does one see Lear's molten act one anger, flow so believably into the heartbroken loving tragedy of the final scenes. And when Sher pleads with his daughters to be allowed his retinue of knights, the speech has rarely been spoken with such moving passion.

Sher's excellence permeates the company. David Troughton’s Gloucester truly stumbles when he saw, with the pathos that develops between him and Oliver Johnstone as Edgar, perfectly nuanced. Not long out of Hamlet's inky cloak Paapa Essiedu's Edmund is a believingly irresistible bastard and in what with this being the panto season 'n all, it’s hard to resist the temptation to boo his delicious devilry. Antony Byrne's Kent is beautifully weighted too.

Continuing her debut RSC season, Natalie Simpson brings a youthful and honest credibility to Cordelia. Lear's youngest daughter has always been a woman ahead of her time with Simpson's interpretation defining the role for the 21st century. Alongside her and continuing the panto analogy, Kelly Williams and Nina Gwynne's Regan and Goneril are wonderfully monstrous sisters (oh yes they are!). Gwynne in particular touching our hearts as she reels at Lear's barbaric curse upon her of sterility.

This being the RSC, no expense is spared and the 6 piece band high above the stage deliver Ilona Sekacz's compositions with a tender elegance that only complements Niki Turners evocative stage design.

Only on for two more weeks and unmissable too. Reason not the need - just get to the Barbican before Christmas. 

Runs until 23rd December
Photo credit: Ellie Kurtz

King Lear - Review

Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford Upon Avon


*****


Written by William Shakespeare
Directed by Gregory Doran

Nia Gwynne, Natalie Simpson, Antony Sher and Kelly Williams

William Shakespeare's tragedy depicting the 17th Century King's descent into madness has been given a pared down, modern retelling by director Gregory Doran in this new production at the RSC. The audience draw is clearly Antony Sher, taking on the eponymous role (the Stratford run is apparently returns only) but this production has much to commend it.

King Lear decides to abdicate & divide his kingdom between his three daughters. He asks each of them to make a public declaration of their love for him. When his youngest daughter, Cordelia, (Natalie Simpson) refuses, she is disinherited, marries the King of France with no dowry & the elder daughters Goneril (Nia Gwynne) & Regan (Kelly Williams) inherit. And so the story of destruction begins. 

From the outset, the seemingly monastic set, looming bare brick walls & a huge rear iron door, invite us to the openness of the Swan stage. Set designer Niki Turner has created a world of angles, cubes & clean simplicity. The costumes would not look out of place on a couture runway; the female gowns are artful, flowing but with bodice structure or faux breastplates, rhinestone embellishment or matte sequin "armour". However exquisite, the costumes never overshadow the actors but seem to empower them.

When Antony Sher enters, carried aloft within a gilt glass box, enveloped in an enormous fur coat and hat, he looks majestically ursine. His Lear appears huge when the audience first encounters him, both in stature and arrogance. Sher proceeds to disintegrate before our eyes, mentally and physically, totally engaging the audience throughout the 3 hour duration. Even within the play's unremitting bleakness, Sher keeps the man behind the monarch the pivotal focus.

An exciting and diverse cast move across the stage seamlessly. Doran's deft direction allows the actors' performances to flourish, unencumbered, allowing Shakespeare's text to sing. This is a version vicious, visceral and venomous.

James Clyde as the Duke Of Cornwall and Kelly William's Regan open Act 2 with a scene of torture, which is bold but quite brilliant in the way the actors convey the utter callousness and casual acceptance of their evil. He takes out a man's eyes as the blood drips through his hands and she stabs a servant who protests as if crushing a spider. In a neon glass torture chamber cube, centre stage, they are delightfully despicable. Tim Mitchell's lighting is akin to an unnamed character here, highlighting the macabre.

David Troughton brings a heartfelt realism to the Earl of Gloucester, a man who disinherits his legitimate son Edgar and believing the lies of his bastard son Edmund, is forced into hiding to save his life. His later scenes were poignant and physically compelling whilst cast-out in the unknown, dealing with blindness. 

Graham Turners' Fool has the commitment of an old Broadway hoofer with an infectious Northern confidence. Both actors have integral scenes with Sher's Lear that are so warm & connected, you completely believe the relationships of these men are endearingly enduring.

As Edgar, Oliver Johnstone is tremendously exciting, using every inch of the stage, blood stained, conveying a manic craziness to his very toenails. Johnstone's physical acting is bold & top notch. Concealing his true identity to his blinded father, you can almost smell the frustration and pain from Johnstone. Head in hands his body expresses as much as his words do.

And then there was Paapa Essiedu. He plays Edmund with such authority and conviction it's startling. His delightful diction makes bullets of choice words; he brings a modern voice to this Shakespeare text as if hearing the speeches anew. When you feel like someone's up on the stage just chatting with you, something good is happening. Mr Essiedu does that. And the audience lapped it up. 

Sher is outstanding in this marvellous rendition but what elevates this production is the cast working together in harmony, telling a well-told tale, in a new and vibrant way. Truly a great night at the theatre.

Runs in Stratford upon Avon until 23rd October, then transferring to the Barbican Theatre London from 10th November to 23rd December

Reviewed by Andy Bee

Photo credit : Ellie Kurttz

King Lear (at Birmingham Rep) - Review

Birmingham Repertory Theatre


****


Written by William Shakespeare
Directed by Michael Buffong

Don Warrington and Miltos Yerolemou

It’s a mark of a good Shakespeare production that, even when one knows the play well, the show reveals new depths and nuances to the text. So it is with Don Warrington whose Lear, now playing at the Birmingham Rep (for a ridiculously short 3 further days!) is up there with the best.

Director Michael Buffong chooses not to play fast and loose with the context. This is a pre-mediaeval setting, all animal skin drapes for royalty and heavy swordplay, mounted against Signe Beckmann’s simply effective staging and it works. No gimmickry here, the power of this production rests solely in the verse and its delivery.

At 65 Warrington is the perfect age to be a monarch who is planning his retirement and wanting to bestow his kingdom upon his three adult daughters. Warrington descends convincingly into the red mist of his rage at what he mistaken sees in Cordelia as a loveless insouciance – and then takes us on the most harrowing of journeys as we watch him realising his foolishness as age slowly saps his mental faculties.

Warrington’s handling of Lear’s big moments is masterful. His curse of sterility upon Rakie Ayola's Goneril is appropriately splenetic, yet where one can occasionally sympathise with his daughter at this point, here Warrington bestows his evil words with a justifiable credibility that is rarely, if ever witnessed.

The man gets better – His impotent rage, howling at Kent being placed in the stocks and subsequent, classic, plea to his daughters to “reason not the need” is heartbreaking. As Lear’s detachment from reason becomes more pronounced, Warrington’s cri de coeur at recognising his decline, “oh let me not be mad” touches us, in our modern ageing society increasingly challenged by dementia, with a touchingly relevant poignancy.

Warrington is surrounded by a fine company – In a revelatory performance Miltos Yerolemou’s Fool bestows a perceptive wisdom on this most intriguing of Shakespeare’s characters. The love between the monarch and his all-licensed fool is tangible (only heightened by the pathos of Lear’s penultimate words “and my poor fool is hanged” on Cordelia’s death) and the white slap that Buffong paints his Fool in, which miserably washes off in the storm scene, offers yet a further glimpse into the stripping back of human facades that had so easily convinced the King.

Of Lear’s daughters Pepter Lunkuse’s Cordelia offers the most rounded performance, however all three women are at times occasionally inaudible. This may be down to the staging/venue, however if there is an opportunity to fine tune this, it would make a very good play even better. Philip Whitchurch’s Gloucester however makes for a touching turn. The sub-plot of his deception by Fraser Ayre’s bastard of an Edmund is effective – with Whitchurch’s “I stumbled when I saw” offering powerful pathos.

Deceptively wicked, Norman Bowman brings a chilling menace to his all-too caledonian Cornwall. A truly malignant thug, his terrifying manner towards Gloucester is frightening even before he lays hands on his host. And credit too to Buffong for laying on a truly gruesome blinding, complete with tendril-strewn eyeballs bouncing off into the stalls. Shakespeare intended the scene as a horror show and, to mash up the reference points, Bowman duly delivers some Tarantino for the groundlings.

Above all, there is a heartbreaking majesty to this production and in this anniversary year of Shakespeare’s death, and with more Lears on the way, Warrington sets the bar very high. His Lear is every inch a King.

Runs until 28th May

Photo credit: Jonathan Keenan

King Lear - Review

National Theatre, London


****

Written by William Shakespeare
Directed by Sam Mendes

Simon Russell Beale and Olivia Vinall

There’s a vogue at the National to thrust Shakespeare’s work into the modern era and with a nod to thrift, the military garb from the South Bank’s recent Othello is coldly furnishing forth the costume requirements of Simon Russell Beale’s King Lear. Indeed, as the closing act conflict plays out, the Dover denouement is often interrupted by the sound effect of jet fighters screaming overhead. It’s a leap in time that doesn’t always sit easily with a tale so firmly rooted in pre-Saxon history.

In an image that highlights the play's thematic plea for Lear to “see clearly”, the programme cover features a half-face close up of the bearded, brooding, Beale. The reality, at least for much of the first half is a very different King. Barely thirteen years since he delivered his career defining Hamlet, Russell Beale’s Lear, stooped and Stalin-like, scuttles around the stage suggesting a hybrid of Captain Birds Eye and Del Boy’s Uncle Albert. There are moments when his overly clipped delivery is eased off, but some noticeable early episodes of agony are squandered. His curse of sterility upon Goneril, arguably one of the most harrowing speeches written, falls short of the mark and that a few of the audience chuckled during Lear’s “O reason not the need” speech further suggests that the production still needs some fine tuning. After the break, Russell Beale excels and the moment late on, as Olivia Vinall’s Cordelia wakes him in his hospital bed is exquisite.

There is some outstanding company work on offer. Stanley Townsend’s Kent offers an energetic brute of loyalty to the King whilst Anna Maxwell Martin’s vitriolic Regan positively sizzles, first as the uncaring daughter and later as a steamily seductive merry widow. Sam Troughton’s bastard Edmund is as dark a baddy as he should be and Tom Brooke’s Edgar is an eloquent and touching interpretation of a complex soul, bravely performed nude through much of the Mad Tom storm sequence. As the Fool, Adrian Scarborough gives an intelligent interpretation to another of Shakespeare’s enigmatic characters and Mendes offers his own explanation to that Bard-Cluedo question: What exactly happens to the Fool? Well in this show he is brutally murdered: by Lear; in a bathtub; bloodily battered with the lead piping. Perhaps the standout performance amongst Lear’s court is that of Stephen Boxer’s Gloucester. Boxer effortlessly coaxes the beauty from his verse and rarely has his character’s confession “I stumbled when I saw” sounded so poignant. If Shakespeare knew that Gloucester’s blinding would entertain a blood-thirsty Elizabethan audience, so too does movie-maker Mendes who with an eye for a good visual and perhaps a nod to Quentin Tarantino, updates the hapless man's torture having him first waterboarded during the “wherefore to Dover?” interrogation before the required eye-gouging. In this production administered with a corkscrew, natch.

The production is unquestionably a brilliant King Lear, even if not one of the finest. It’s a fresh interpretation of the classic tale and its extremes of good, evil and the redemptive blessing of forgiveness prove as relevant today as ever. It’s a version that will be talked about for years and if you are lucky enough to acquire a ticket, (they are like gold dust) it is an evening very well spent.

Booking through to May 2014

King Lear - Review

Almeida Theatre, London

****

Written by William Shakespeare

Directed by Michael Attenborough

The Almeida's image of Jonathan Pryce as King Lear

King Lear at the Almeida is a raw production, designed and costumed with a pre Christian simpleness of stone, flax and linen that serves the story well. Lear's pagan kingdom, rife with base human motives of bastardy, lechery, jealousy and greed, as well as deep love and loyalty is clearly depicted in this interpretation by Michael Attenborough.

At 65, Jonathan Pryce is realistically aged for the title role. At times majestic, his wild ( not entirely grey ) hair and luxurious beard combined with a partially exposed chest, suggest a man still in possession of many physical faculties. His is a rare Lear that still has the potential to make members of the audience swoon. The performance is pitiful too as we witness the fraying of the king's powers of reason with his age. "Oh let me not be mad " has rarely conveyed such power, coming from a man who whilst at that juncture of old age where his mind is becoming increasingly muddled and  impaired, is young enough to still be painfully aware of his own decline.

Clive Wood’s Gloucester is as good as any. He easily suggests a man who enjoys life and who enjoyed begetting Edmund out of wedlock, yet is sufficiently naïve to be hoodwinked by his bastard son into believing Edgar's plot against him. Even more than Lear perhaps, this Gloucester is a man more sinned against than sinning. As Edmund, Kieran Bew possesses power, presence and evil will. He exudes the sexual attraction that sees both Goneril and Regan lust for him and up until his final swordfight he remains a plausible villain. Richard Goulding provides a thoughtful Edgar and in an interestingly creative touch, Attenborough has us introduced to the young man whilst he is whoring. A credible concept given his father’s track record and with a further degree of inventiveness provided by Edmund paying off the whore. This small detail by the director provides a slightly refreshing perspective on the two brothers, clearly demonstrating Edmunds perceptive and manipulative skills. Goulding’s Edgar goes on to be a moving performance, particularly after he encounters his blinded father, but he has more in the tank that can be given to this production and he needs to find it to truly win the sympathy and pathos that an exceptional Edgar can garner. 

Attenborough has also had some creative fun with Regan and Goneril. During the opening scene in which the kingdom is divided, as Lear awards each sister their portion, he kisses these two older siblings fully and inappropriately on the mouth, clearly suggesting an abusive sexual relationship. This sexual connotation almost justifies the sisters’ subsequent cruel stance towards their father and provides another refreshing perspective on a critical aspect of the tale. Zoe Waites is a worthy Goneril, but no more than that. The moment when Lear curses her with sterility, is a point in the play that has the power to bring an audience to tears. Where a well acted king requires an "as strong" actress as his daughter, to flinch at her father's venomous words, Waite's response to this pivotal speech lacked emotional power. Jenny Jules’ Regan also needs greater depth. Attenborough could have and should have extracted more from both these women, they deserved it.

Chook Sibtain’s Cornwall was nasty throughout. He oozed contempt with word and action, blinding Gloucester in a scene that owed as much to Eli Roth’s “torture porn” as to classic writing. When he throws the ripped out eyeballs at his bleeding helpless victim, the audience flinch and rarely has Gloucester’s Tenant needed to have been as kindly as Alix Wilton Regan’s, her warmth almost soothing the crowd before they rush out for much needed interval G&Ts.

The Almeida stage is sparsely adorned for the production. Laid with heavy flagstones, a pre mediaeval time is clearly suggested. The production is generally lit well too, though there is an occasional incongruity with electric bulkhead lights flickering on external castle walls that sit at odds with the setting of the play, particluarly true with traditional flaming torches burning in the production. 

Without doubt this is a King Lear that demands to be seen. Whilst Attenborough could have made the company more exciting around their star, Pryce remains one of the leading actors of his era. His performance as the ageing raging king is memorable, moving and will stay with one for a long time.

Runs until November 3 2012 

FOOTNOTE

Much anticipation surrounds each new production of both Hamlet and King Lear. Within an actor's professional life cycle, to play the Dane marks an accession to Shakespeare's great roles, whilst Lear is a role typically tackled in the twilight of a career. At 65, Jonathan Pryce plays the ageing king at perhaps the commencement of a twilight chapter with his performance presenting a more "youthful" take on the ageing monarch when compared to some of the other relatively recent Lears of Jacobi and McKellen. As a footnote and albeit long before blogging was invented, Hecuba was fortunate enough to see Pryce's astounding 1980 Hamlet at the Royal Court and it is pleasing to witness part of the revolve of this actor's Shakespearean career.