King Lear
Approximately 2 hours No interval
King Lear - 2023 West End History , Info & More
Wyndham's Theatre
(Leicester Square) Charing Cross Road London
Kenneth Branagh will direct and play the title role for 50 performances only at Wyndham’s Theatre from 21 October.
King Lear - 2023 - West End Cast
FEATURED REVIEWS FOR King Lear
Branagh’s playful, furious, magnificent Lear is too big for this production
6 / 10
This is a bare-bones Lear – stripped of much of its weird cosmic poetry and shorn too of much of its complexity. The claustrophobic intimacy suits a reading that is fiercely attuned to the domestic and familial chaos at the play’s heart and the central crisis of Lear’s relationship with Jessica Revell’s single-minded Cordelia. It is less suited to the play’s restless sense of the epic and universal scope.
Kenneth Branagh’s fast and feverish tragedy
6 / 10
Staged at a hurtling two hours with no interval, it is almost cinematic in its action-packed speed, which on stage appears like haste. Actors barrel from one scene to another with too few pauses. This divests the play of its deep, meditative qualities on the nature of being, ageing and questions of the soul.
Category
by Aliya Al-Hassan - November 1, 2023
Kenneth Branagh returns to the West End to direct and play the title role in William Shakespeare’s KING LEAR, for 50 performances only. Completing the cast is a company of RADA graduates.
by Alexander Cohen - November 1, 2023
Alarm bells ring when a director stars in the play they are also directing. Even if that director is Sir Kenneth Branagh. Nine times out of ten the production falls flat and the audience are left wondering if ego is to blame. Branagh’s hotly anticipated stab at King Lear is, sadly, no exception.
by Aliya Al-Hassan - October 3, 2023
Images have been released from inside the rehearsal room for The Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company’s King Lear. Check out the photos here.
King Lear FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
King Lear History
Other Productions of King Lear
| 1754 | Broadway |
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| 1905 | Broadway |
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| 1906 | Broadway |
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| 1907 | Broadway |
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| 1907 | Broadway |
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| 1907 | Broadway |
Broadway |
| 1909 | Broadway |
Broadway |
| 1911 | Broadway |
Broadway |
| 1915 | Broadway |
Broadway |
| 1917 | Broadway |
Broadway |
| 1918 | Broadway |
Broadway |
| 1923 | Broadway |
Broadway |
| 1930 | Broadway |
Broadway |
| 1930 | Broadway |
Broadway |
| 1947 | Broadway |
Broadway |
| 1950 | Broadway |
Broadway |
| 1962 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
| 1968 | Broadway |
Broadway |
| 1973 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
| 1978 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
| 1982 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
| 1990 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
| 1996 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
| 2004 | Broadway |
Lincoln Center Revival Broadway |
| 2006 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
| 2007 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
| 2011 | Off-Broadway |
Public Theater Production Off-Broadway |
| 2014 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
| 2014 | Off-Broadway |
Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park Off-Broadway |
| 2016 | West End |
Old Vic Revival Production West End |
| 2018 | West End |
Chichester Festival Theatre West End Revival West End |
| 2019 | Broadway |
Broadway Revival Broadway |
| 2023 | West End |
West End |
| 2024 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway Production Off-Broadway |
| 2026 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
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