The Almeida’s former Artistic Director, Michael Attenborough, brings Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy to the intimacy of the Almeida stage.
When Lear asks each of his daughters to profess their love for him, he is flattered by the false hyperbole of Regan and Goneril. When his youngest daughter Cordelia confesses to love him simply as a daughter should, his pride is dented and he casts her out of his kingdom.
Too late to realise his mistake, and forced from power by his offspring, an increasingly impotent and frail Lear descends into madness.
Award-winning actor Jonathan Pryce plays the title role in a production that forms part of the World Shakespeare Festival, which is produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company for London 2012 Festival.
The production was captured by Digital Theatre at the Almeida.
CAST INCLUDES:
Ian Gelder, Clive Wood, Kieran Bew, Jonathan Pryce, Zoe Waites , Jenny Jules , Phoebe Fox Richard Hope Chook Sibtain Andrew Nolan Ben Dilloway Richard Goulding, Steven Elliott , Barry McCarthy, Trevor Fox , Christopher Tester , Alix Wilton Regan
“Pryce becomes both thrilling and deeply moving…brilliantly captures both the torment and the sudden glimmers of truth that lear discovers in his insanity…Ian Gelder is excellent as Kent and Trevor Fox as a touching geordie fool... Clive Wood on splendid form”
★★★★
The Telegraph
‘the thing you notice…is mr Pryce’s beautiful verse-speaking. it is not ostentatious. the lines just trip out of him and you can hear them as though for the first time.”
★★★★
Daily Mail
‘Pryce’s performance is rich, devastating and without doubt among the very best’
★★★★
Mail on Sunday
’ …he’s [Jonathan Pryce] simply brilliant... it’s horrible, it’s beautiful, it’s what you come to Lear to see.”
★★★★
The Times
‘Michael Attenborough’s production is lucid, well-spoken and confidently paced… on a fine, forbidding set by Tom Scutt, it feels loaded with imagery of furtiveness and repression – but has a satisfying directness.”
★★★★
Evening Standard