Review: KING LEAR, Richmond Theatre, May 9 2016

A month or so before the European Union contemplates its own (partial) break-up, King Lear (continuing at Richmond Theatre until 14 May and on tour) is a timely reminder of what can happen when nations are split.

For that is how the play opens as Lear, ageing and aware that his faculties are drifting away from him, calls his three daughters together for the fateful meeting that sets events in train that lead to grisly ends for all of them. (The 1930s costumes also lend a "fracturing Europe" undercurrent to the plot.)

Michael Pennington commands the stage as Lear, whether mad with his Fool, railing against the elements in the storm or pitifully penitent with poor Cordelia when the game is up. He gets excellent support, especially from Sally Scott and Catherine Bailey as the ugly-at-heart sisters Regan and Goneril and also in an almost feline (Shere Khan perhaps) performance from Scott Karim as the amoral, ambitious, illegitimate and thoroughly modern militant Edmund. There's plenty of other characters to keep tabs on too, so this is definitely a Shakespeare when it pays to read the synopsis beforehand and remember whose allying with whom and why.

Lear is always open to interpretation - is it about senility/madness, the search for a mother figure, the perils of Machiavellianism, the foolishness of kings? Right here, right now, its message seemed as much political as anything else. Beware neat divisions of political entities. Beware too of asking for approval, as those that give it may be flatterers and have ulterior motives at hand. Probably its most compelling message is that those blessed with eyes that see and a mind not slipping away from them, may still lack the judgement that statesmanship requires. And, of course, always remember Illegitimi non carborundum - don't let the bastards grind you down.