King Lear - 2016 - West End
Leading an outstanding company, double Academy Award-winning legend Glenda Jackson returns to the stage to play King Lear, a quarter of a century after she gave up acting for politics.
Written during a period of great social upheaval, Shakespeare’s brutal masterpiece is arguably the greatest tragedy ever written. The fatal consequences of a foolish decision are explored in haunting poetry to create one of the most moving works in the English language.
Schedule
Running Time: Three hours and 30 minutes, with one interval
Twitter watch
King Lear West End Cast
by Jenny Gilbert
- November 8, 2016
Gender-blind casting has arrived and we'd better get used to it. Correction: it seems we are getting used to it, viz the imminent revival of the Donmar's all-female Shakespeare trilogy. So the headline story of this Old Vic production is not that a woman is taking on the Everest north-face of a role formerly reserved for mature alpha males of the acting profession. The headline story of Glenda Jackson's Lear is that this Lear is magnificent, and its magnificence emanates directly from the text.
by BWW News Desk
- November 6, 2016
King Lear opened at The Old Vic on 4 November 2016, and BroadwayWorld has all the reviews!
A quarter of a century after she gave up acting for politics, double Academy Award-winning legend Glenda Jackson returns to play King Lear in Shakespeare's greatest tragedy, alongside an outstanding company including William Chubb, Morfydd Clark, Jane Horrocks, Rhys Ifans, Celia Imrie, Simon Manyonda and Harry Melling.
