The Old Vic's KING LEAR Starring Glenda Jackson Opens in London - All the Reviews

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.

Let's see what the critics had to say!

Michael Billington, The Guardian: Her great gift, however, is to think each moment of the play afresh. She enters, without undue ceremony, hand in hand with her beloved Cordelia. But there is irony when she announces, in a self-mocking drawl, that she will "crawl" unburdened towards death. Having routinely given Goneril and Regan their share of the kingdom, she ecstatically cries "Now our joy" on turning to Cordelia, and initially greets her refusal to play the game with incredulous laughter. But instantly this turns to violence as she hurls Cordelia to the floor and rushes at Kent with one of the blue chairs that adorn the set. Yet, even here, the mood swiftly changes as Jackson registers the banished Kent's departure with a derisive regal wave.

Dominic Cavendish, The Telegraph: Where does all her energy come from? Or that voice, which can blast out with a force to induce shockwaves? She's so pale, so spectre-thin - with an androgynous crop of lankish hair - that she might almost have been out on the blastEd Heath for months. Yet this wraith can suggest intense, implacable wrath - baring tombstone gnashers like a wildcat, tearing metaphorical chunks off her brood (Morfydd Clark's Cordelia, Celia Imrie's Goneril, Jane Horrocks's Regan) as they take it in turns to disappoint her. Her neck pushes forward in vein-accentuating confrontation, her hands shake. What a terrifying parent this Lear must have been - still is.

Demetrius Matheou, The Hollywood Reporter: And more than that, Jackson delivers, brilliantly - not a self-aggrandizing performance that seeks to leave us crumpled by the bellowing heights of Lear's tragedy, but one which exerts the discomforting grip of familiarity. In Deborah Warner's splendidly lucid, punchy, mordantly funny production, this is a Lear whose hubris and foible, and particularly his dotage, elicits a resonant pathos.

Mark Shenton, The Stage: But, thrillingly, there's no need to tiptoe around her achievement. Lear is a remarkable act of stamina, memory and emotional reserves for any actor. It becomes, in Jackson's initially ferocious and ultimately desperately vulnerable presence, a tour de force. As she stumbles around the heath, her bare, bony legs exposed, you know everything of Lear's age and rage and what these events have cost him.

Lucinda Everett, What's On Stage: There is much to praise in her performance, not least her astounding stamina in tackling the production's three-and-a-half-hour run time. She steams out of the blocks, hissing her way through her rejection of Cordelia, howling at her own mistreatment - all with a captivating commitment. But there are problems, too. With such a diminutive frame - admittedly a poignant attribute for the ageing Lear - her voice is her chief currency with which to show the King's initial authority but, at times, it lacks power and flexibility. Later, however, her stature and quieter vocal approach come into their own, combining to give a beautiful gentleness to Lear's descent into madness - it's like watching a child carefully building a protective den of blankets against their bedroom monsters.

Heather Neill, The Arts Desk: Between times, from 1992 to 2015, as a Labour MP, Jackson gave the House of Commons the benefit of her toughness in speeches that invariably spoke for the dispossessed in society, notably the homeless. When as Lear she bellows "O reason not the need" with such heartfelt ferocity, she might once again be addressing Iain Duncan Smith across the chamber. King Lear was, in that sense, an obvious choice for her, but its physical demands and the stamina required argue tremendous courage for a woman of her years; she is, unusually for the actor playing Lear, exactly the age of the character: 80. Often dwarfed by those around her she is, nevertheless, "every inch a king" and, as Lear loses his grip on reality and in the scenes with the blinded Gloucester and the body of Cordelia she is very moving. Her daring has paid off.

Photo Credit: Tristram Kenton

To post a comment, you must register and login.