National Theatre Live: KING LEAR

Director: Jonathan Munby

2018, UK, 210

Screenwriter: William Shakespeare

Cast: Ian McKellen (Lear), Sinéad Cusack (Kent), Danny Webb (Gloucester), Kirsty Bushell (Regan), James Corrigan (Edmund), Lloyd Hutchinson (Fool), Claire Price (Goneril), Luke Thompson (Edgar), Anita-Joy Uwajeh (Cordelia), Anthony Howell (Albany), James Millard, Johanne Murdock, Jessica Murrain, Daniel Rabin (Cornwall), Scott Sparrow (Albany’s Man), John Vernon, Richard Clews, John Hastings, Michael Matus and Caleb Roberts

 

Don’t miss the live broadcast performance of one of the hottest tickets in London: Ian McKellen’s ‘extraordinarily moving portrayal’ (Independent) of King Lear. Chichester Festival Theatre’s production received rave reviews for its sell-out run, now moved to the West End. Jonathan Munby directs McKellen in a contemporary setting of Shakespeare’s tender, moving and shocking play, often called the greatest tragedy written in the English language. King Lear sees two ageing fathers – one a King, one his courtier – reject the children who truly love them. Their blindness unleashes a tornado of ambition and treachery, as family and state alike are plunged into a violent and ultimately futile struggle for power. “McKellen’s Lear, contains a performance rooted in minute observation of old age and a profound understanding of the enlightenment that comes from dispossession.” – 4 stars, Michael Billington, The Guardian.