Theatre review: King Lear (Wyndham's)

The received wisdom on Kenneth Branagh is that he's been living out a lifelong Laurence Olivier fixation by playing all the major roles he was most associated with, in performances that increasingly make the late Baron of Brighton seem like a master of gritty naturalism. This has inevitably built up to King Lear, and watching the production - which he also, of course, directs himself in - I have to wonder if this is really the case, or if in fact his role models are the 19th century actor-managers who gave their names to the West End theatres he plays in. Certainly the performances, not only his own but those he gets out of a cast largely made up of recent graduates, are the kind of thing you can imagine a Victorian audience being used to. The evening opens with a projection of the Earth seen from space, perhaps as a clue to where SirKenBran's performance will be visible from.

Referencing the line about this story taking place before Merlin's time (although like most of the good lines that go to other characters, that one's been cut,) the production is set in ancient Britain.

Characters wear furs and fight wars with sharpened sticks, although Edmund (Corey Mylchreest) does get a metal dagger to cut himself with, and their footwear is surprisingly advanced - turns out Clarks actually has been around since the Stone Age. Again, this harks back to 19th century theatrical traditions; the major cliché of the time, Stonehenge, doesn't actually make an appearance, which might just be designer Jon Bausor putting his foot down. Instead we just get some hengeless standing stones, as well as a giant sphincter hanging over the stage.

To be fair I might have taken against this production from the moment casting was announced: The story of two old men who misjudge their children, Branagh's Lear trusts the flattering Goneril (Deborah Alli) and Regan (Melanie-Joyce Bermudez) and gives them complete power over his kingdom, banishing the blunt Cordelia (Jessica Revell.) For the other story strand we get Joseph Kloska as Gloucester, and I know I go on about being a grumpy old man but no, I am not ready to see this misguided pensioner played by an actor nearly a decade younger than me. I'm going to quite firmly blame this on the prehistoric setting, and short life expectancies.

Gloucester trusts Mylchreest's panto villain Edmund when he frames the dull but reliable Edgar (Doug Colling) for crimes he himself is planning to commit, in a subplot that's rushed through pretty briskly: The other big gimmick of the production is its two-hour running time without interval. This means both some speedy deliveries and a lot of text editing, and one early edit stood out to me: In the opening battle over which of his daughters can kiss his arse with the most tongue, Goneril's speech is followed by Regan saying she shares her views but then going even further into flattery. It's an early introduction to the kind of slick and oily character she is, but here the latter part is cut, meaning she basically follows her sister by stepping centre stage and saying "same."

A cynical person might suggest that this is the thinking behind the way the text's been cut - never mind what it does to the characters or plot, let's just minimise the bits where SirKenBran isn't centre stage, he's who the audience are there for (nobody tell him some are bound to be there for The Sexy Madness of George III, he'd probably fire him for pulling focus.) As Vanessa pointed out afterwards, this cut doesn't even make sense: If Lear is going to lose his shit over the youngest daughter's flattery being a bit lukewarm, he's hardly going to be impressed by the middle one shrugging and going "what she said."

Perhaps most annoyingly, and maybe related to why I don't like actors directing themselves, there's no arc to Branagh's performance, every scene is just bellowed out of context: His Lear's a powerful chieftain who divides his kingdom so that there isn't a war over it after his death; there's no hint that death, or any degree of decay, might be imminent. So when he says "O let me not be mad" it's not a man who's confronting the onset of dementia he's been ignoring until then, but one who's read ahead a couple of scenes and knows what's going to happen in the storm.

The show has been exclusively cast with actors who went to RADA (which I'm sure is... fine, and not exclusionary in any way?) and as showcases for them go it's rather hampered by SirKenBran making them all do the same declamatory performances as him, standing centre stage and speaking in capslock. He's still the biggest ham on the stage though, and I was already getting the giggles ten minutes in when he accused Eleanor de Rohan's Kent of being a "rrrrrecrrrrrreant!" like Davros having a stroke.

There are glimpses of something that might have worked: We get the doubling of Cordelia and the Fool, and it's in the latter role that Revell actually gets the chance to develop something of an onstage relationship with Lear. But apart from Nina Dunn's projections, which put extreme close-ups of the cast onto the standing stones and heavenly sphincter at random intervals, this weird, dusty vanity project gives the distinct impression that, unless he's actually been on stage himself, SirKenBran hasn't set foot in a theatre in the last 30 (or possibly 130) years.

King Lear by William Shakespeare is booking until the 9th of December at Wyndham's Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours straight through.

Photo credit: Johan Persson.