King Lear ★★★★ Wyndham’s Theatre | Oct 21 - Dec 9, 2023


Kenneth Branagh takes on a formidable challenge with his decision to both direct and star in Shakespeare's tragedy about age and the dynamics of power. The play is pared down to two hours and is set in what appears to be Stonehenge. While there will certainly be objections to both Branagh's abridging and interpretation of the work, for us, the pacing and stark staging brought a refreshing energy and intensity to a play which can sometimes seem uninflected and somewhat belaboured. Branagh, the director, has created a rich atmosphere that resonates with action and passion. He also draws some strong performances out of his cast, and we were particularly taken by Corey Mylchreest's malevolent Edmund and Joseph Kloska's tormented Gloucester. In fact, it is Branagh's own interpretation of Lear that raises some questions. From the outset, it is never quite believable that such an imperious and vigorous monarch would choose to divide his kingdom amongst his children in the first place. And, even at his most humbled, this Lear seems almost remarkably hardy. Indeed, Branagh invariably attacks and enunciates the protagonist's speeches in a way that almost belies any vulnerability or developing self-awareness. Ultimately, this is a production which offers an interpretation of the play and a portrayal of Lear that is going to provide lots of fodder for both debate and deliberation.

Rated: ★★★★

Reviewed by J.C.
Photo by Johan Persson.

Want to save on tickets? See our Tips page.

When, Where, Getting there:
Map & Location: Charing Cross Rd, London WC2H 0DA, UK

Most Popular

St. Martin in-the-fields: Lunchtime Concerts ★★★★ FREE

Image
Maybe the best musical value in London. The lunchtime concerts at St. Martin's are always a wonderful way to escape the hustle and bustle that is London and the sensory overload that is Trafalgar Square. This is a beautiful setting with great acoustics, and a church pew hard enough to make sure you don't nod off. Reviewed by J.C.  Our score:    ☆☆☆☆  WHEN, WHERE, GETTING THERE: Mon & Fri: 1 pm - 1:45 pm ( occasionally Tues & Thurs)  St. Martin in-the-fields, Trafalgar Square Nearest tube: Charing Cross https://www.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/whats-on
Full Details »

Knocking on the Wall ★★★★ Finborough Theatre | Oct 31 - Nov 25, 2023

Image
Henry David Thoreau wrote that “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation,” and these three short plays by Ena Lamont Stewart provide a graphic reflection of Thoreau's incisive aphorism. The revival of the three works by Scotland's preeminent female playwright is an opportunity to appreciate both some beautifully etched characterisations and powerful insights into isolation and the challenges of human connection. The first play, "Towards Evening," presents the fraught relationship of an elderly brother and sister who have decided to live together in their later years. Their mutual incomprehension as they strive to overcome the barriers of their upbringing, the imposition of gender roles and differing educational backgrounds are brilliantly rendered by Robert Hands and Janette Foggo. They capture all the nuances of the siblings' tentative reaching out for emotional support across the barrier of the years and their secrets. The second play "Walkies Time f
Full Details »

Mates in Chelsea ★★★ Royal Court Theatre | Nov 3 - Dec 16, 2023

Image
Tug has run up a lot of debts and his mother informs him that he'll have to sell the ancestral castle in order to deal with the situation. It's a dilemma that leads to a lot of silliness and some serious commentary on the state of contemporary British society. While the first act of Rory Mullarkey's new comedy starts on a bit of a wobbly note, the laughs soon start to roll in as Tug (Laurie Kynaston) and his mate, Charlie, played by George Fouracres begin to trade quips in a manner reminiscent of Wilde's Algernon and Jack. Their dialogue is counterpointed by the comments of Mrs Hanratty (Amy Booth-Steel) the Lenin-loving, but consummate housekeeper who recalls J.B. Priestley's prescient Jeeves. The mood is further established and becomes enjoyably familiar when Lady Agrippina (equal parts Nero's mother and Lady Bracknell) appears on the scene. Fenella Woolgar does a splendid job of conjuring up the dowager viscountess and wrings the most from all of her lines. T
Full Details »

Sleeping Beauty Takes A Prick ★★★★★ Charing Cross Theatre | Nov 23, 2023 - Jan 13, 2024

Image
Sleeping Beauty Takes A Prick ticks all the pantomime boxes. There's a singalong, the audience gets to shout advice and the outrageous double entendres come thick and fast. Add some silly songs, sweets tossed out, an over-the-top dame whose wardrobe is quite wondrous and you have the total package. Writers Jon Bradfield and Martin Hooper don't miss a trick in this LGBTQ+ ode to the genre. The plot is a wild riff on the story of Sleeping Beauty with a gay prince who is cursed not to have sex until he is twenty-one. His wicked uncle takes over his kingdom of Slutvia for one hundred years while the prince and his mother sleep in a spaceship which has brought the prince's alien lover to earth. While many of the prince's problems are caused by his rather inept, lesbian fairy protector, his interfering mother who has her own love life problems doesn't help much. These people have complicated lives, and it all adds up to a raunchy, riotous adult panto that never misses a
Full Details »

The Mongol Khan ★★★★ London Coliseum | Nov 17 - Dec 2, 2023

Image
The Mongol Khan is a genre-defying spectacle that incorporates song, dance, puppetry and drama. Created by Mongolia's leading playwright the epic story tells the tragic tale of a leader who is deceived by his wily counsellor into thinking that the latter's son is actually Khan's heir, while the true son is being ignored. Westerners will probably be thinking of Shakespeare's Lear and Iago but there's a dash of The Comedy of Errors , and also a hint of Oedipus Rex . With a cast of over seventy, there are some amazing costumes, spellbinding choreography and clever special effects. It all adds up to an evening that really takes one back to the origins of theatre when people expected a feast of entertainment for their money and would have felt cheated by the contemporary predilection for two acts squeezed into about two hours. In fact, the current production has apparently been abridged for Western tastes and this does take away a bit from the majesty of the piece. Its
Full Details »

Discover Liotard & The Lavergne Family Breakfast ★★★★★ The National Gallery | Until March 3, 2024 (Free Entry)

Image
This exquisite, small exhibition will be every art lover's cup of tea. Jean-Etienne Liotard is an 18th century artist more celebrated in his time than he is today, but this delightful look at his work should be an important step in rectifying this situation. Liotard worked in a variety of media from oils to ceramics, but his crowning achievement was in pastels. He was a master of this extremely fragile medium, and the central point of the current exhibition is an excellent opportunity to compare and contrast his representation of the same subject, The Lavergne Family Breakfast , in both pastels and in oil. For the first time in almost 250 years, Liotard's masterpieces come together and are placed side by side. The pastel version was acquired by The National Gallery in 2019 and the oil, which was painted almost twenty years later, has been lent from a private collection. Contrasting the two representations highlights how the two media can be employed to deal with volume, tone an
Full Details »

£1 Thursdays ★★★ Finborough Theatre | Nov 28 - Dec 22, 2023

Image
Young, Northern and working class! Stacey and Jen are best friends. They are seventeen and finishing school, and they also face leaving their comfort zone. Bradford and £1 Thursdays at Club Ocean are the world they have known, but now, they have other options that could threaten their friendship. Aspirations can be disconcerting and may disrupt the convenient covenant they have with each other and with their environment. Kat Rose-Martin has written a play that has a compelling authenticity. It is easy to identify with the girls' uncertainty and adolescent bravado, as we recognise their vulnerability and attachment to the familiar. It may be limited, but this is the life they are comfortable with. Unfortunately, this narrative also has a certain familiarity and predictability. The strain on teenage friendships as school ends and the challenge that social mobility places on youthful relationships is not new territory, and this reworking of the themes holds few surprises. The charact
Full Details »

Peter Pan Goes Wrong ★★★★ Lyric Theatre | Nov 23, 2023 - Jan 14, 2024

Image
In 2014 Mischief Theatre brought its successful formula of chaos and carnage to J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan and the results have proven to be a lot of fun. Since 2010, the Mischief gang have been producing works like The Play that Goes Wrong and Magic Goes Wrong and the premise is unchanging: an inept theatre group put on a production where everything is a disaster. The sets fall apart, the props are missing and the actors can't act. There's lots of slapstick silliness and terrific physical comedy. For some, the predictability of all this may rob the experience of the element of surprise that provokes laughter, but for the fans of the franchise it always works. The antics of the bumbling cast and shambolic performance are satisfyingly familiar. While all the usual tropes are present in this particular iteration, things do seem to drag a little in Act I. One reason that the second act might work better is that we get more of the backstory of the actors. The disasters become
Full Details »

Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going To Happen ★★★★★ Bush Theatre | Until December 23, 2023

Image
Comedy as catharsis! From the moment he comes on stage and constantly repeats his age, we see that The Comedian is obsessed by the passage of time and its inevitable result. His signature joke betrays the obsession with death that underlies so much of his humour, and even as he uses sex, drugs and laughter to escape his morose fear, it is ever present. Ironically, he shares this prescription to assuage his pain with a doctor friend, but then, someone enters his life who suffers from cataplexy, a condition which the stranger says means that he could actually die from laughing. The Comedian's modus vivendi is challenged, and he must come to realise that what he is actually fleeing is not the inescapability of time and death, but the realities of life and love. Marcelo Dos Santos has written an insightful, and sometimes brilliant, show that explores the dark sources of comedy and exposes how a painfully self-aware, yet equally self-deceptive, individual can transmute fear into humour
Full Details »

To Have and To Hold ★★★★ Hampstead Theatre | Until November 25, 2023

Image
Middle-aged children with busy lives who are trying to cope with aged parents set in their ways – it's a scenario that will ring true for many in the audience. Richard Bean's portrait of this family dynamic walks a fine line between sentimentality and caricature and there are some terrific one-liners. Alun Armstrong and Marion Bailey are quite brilliant as a sparring elderly couple who are simultaneously amusing and oddly endearing. The two have been together so long that the niceties have gone out the window, and their affection, and fear of impending separation and death, have been distilled into a well-honed battle of wits that only appears to be uncaring. Into this almost hermetically sealed world, which their mother is constantly locking up, venture the couple's two adult children who have a naïve determination to do "the right thing." However, what they actually end up doing disrupts the delicate equilibrium of this hothouse environment. They accuse the good
Full Details »

The City Life Magazine | Reviews & Ratings