MAYER WAKEFIELD is entertained but let down by an audacious production that, sadly, doesn't ring true
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Ian McKellen (right) as King Lear
[Johan Persson]
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King Lear
Duke of York’s Theatre
London WC 2
★★★★
HOWEVER many times I see King Lear, my first instinct is always to marvel yet again at the wild and fearless excesses of the original play.
It takes us right to the sharp end of human life where power crumbles to nothing, where the blind lead the blind, where folly rules and where the Fool — a creature of oblique instincts, waywardness and caprice — stumbles on essential truths that seem somehow off limits to the reasoned mind.
It’s a powerhouse of imagination and an unparalleled penetration of the human condition in a godless and structure-less world.
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GEOFF BOTTOMS applauds a world-class production King Lear that pits late feudalism against a rising bourgeoisie
MARY CONWAY admires a brave and topical study of Armageddon that is, unfortunately, unable to come to a conclusion
Family issues and dragon-fuelled history amount to a vacuous spectacle that ill-fits the theatre, muses SIMON PARSONS
Although this production was in rehearsal before the playwright’s death, it allows us to pay homage to his life, suggests MARY CONWAY