★★★★

“an approachable and nothing-to-fear Lear”

Kenneth Branagh acts in and directs this welcome West End Shakespearean production. Compressed into two hours and performed without an interval, this is an approachable and nothing-to-fear Lear. When on stage, Branagh leads from the front, always at the centre with an arc of supporting characters around him. The direction is sparse, a long succession of comings and goings between characters, often carrying letters to be delivered or discovered.

An extended opening scene before any dialogue is spoken places us in ancient Britain. A dramatic tribal dance (Aletta Collins Choreographer), a Pagan ceremony perhaps, with much thumping of staffs in which King Lear (Branagh) appears dressed in animal furs, his staff held high.

The set is a visual delight (Jon Bausor set and costume designer): A semi-circle of monoliths set to the rear that morph between representations of Neolithic standing stones and Dover’s white cliffs. Above the stage is a huge astral disc. Light and projection brilliantly lifts and lowers the mood (Paul Keogan Lighting Designer, Nina Dunn Projection Designer). Darkness is used to great effect, especially in the storm scene and to represent Gloucester’s blindness.

“Allowing the text to breathe, he gives every consonant its full importance”

It is a reliable-enough performance from Branagh, whilst we may question if he acts old enough or mad enough for the role. Above everything, his Shakespearean diction is exemplary. Allowing the text to breathe, he gives every consonant its full importance. This style may no longer be to everyone’s taste but it works well here and dually provides a working lesson to the supporting cast of RADA alumni around him.

There is little time to get to know the other characters. Goneril (Deborah Alli) and Regan (Melanie-Joyce Bermudez) are both cold and spiteful with little to love in either of them. Jessica Revell brings out delightfully the loving and empathic side of wronged Cordelia but appears less comfortable in her double role as the zither-strumming Fool.

The half-brothers Edmund (Corey Mylchreest) and Edgar (Doug Colling) are admirably chalk and cheese. Edmund is rugged, hirsute, greasy and grimy but played by Mylchreest a little too close to pantomime villain at times. Edgar is the clean-shaven, boy-next-door. Colling provides the scene of the night as he guides his blinded father Gloucester (the excellent Joseph Kloska) in the guise of Poor Tom.

An exhilarating concluding battle scene (Bret Yount) is a mirror of the opening tribal dance but this time with a real fear of danger as the staffs are whirled as weapons.

Kenneth Branagh makes the stage his own in his final scene, cradling the body of Cordelia in his arms. As Lear’s last words stick in his throat, we witness an horrific, silent scream. Pure, perfect theatre.

FAITH HEALER at the Cambridge Arts Theatre

★★★

“Paul Carroll in the title role – framing the whole and holding the play together – is excellent”

London Classic Theatre presents a revival, forty-plus years on, of Brien Friel’s well thought of play directed by Michael Cabot. Recognised by some as one of the great contemporary plays, it’s a curious piece made up of four monologues given by three characters. With no linear action to follow, the audience must piece together an understanding of what has gone before from the recollections of the three characters. Recollections that are often shady, with memories unreliable, events half-forgotten or deliberately reframed over time.

The Faith Healer of the title is Frank (Paul Carroll) – a man with a gift, or a mountebank depending on your interpretation. With his wife/mistress Grace (Gina Costigan) and Manager Teddy (Jonathan Ashley), the three of them have travelled for years across Wales and Scotland from village to village. A battered banner is displayed “The Fantastic Frank Hardy – for One Night Only”. The loudest laugh of the evening is that an earlier tagline describing Frank as “the seventh son of a seventh son” was revised because it made the poster too expensive.

A giant mirror at the rear of the stage is tilted down to reflect the floor upon which the characters pace (Set & Costume Designer Bek Palmer). Three large stone paving slabs surrounded by shingle represent the distorted shapes of Wales, Scotland, and Ireland.

Frank reminisces. The two other characters sit at the side of the stage, listening in. We wonder later how this can be possible so perhaps they exist here just in Frank’s memory. He points and gesticulates, picking out members of the audience – just as Frank the Faith Healer might have done in his shows of yesteryear. He is dressed respectably in a three-piece suit and trilby, that perhaps has seen better days.

Grace rises, dressed in a drab brown frock and cardigan, and takes her turn. Gina Costigan is amusingly skittish in her movements, but her vocal delivery is sometimes unclear. As she pauses midsentence and breaks the flow, the speech loses direction. With a seeming lack of emotion in describing some heartfelt things, she sadly fails to hold our attention. What we do learn though is that much of what we have heard so far might not be as straightforward as we thought.

The third monologue is from the debonair Teddy. Providing a splash of colour in his smoking jacket, yellow waistcoat and red bowtie, Jonathan Ashley confidently prowls the stage like a stand-up comedian regaling the audience of his stories of past glories. [Shades of John Osborne’s The Entertainer, here]

Brien Friel gives us four excellent examples of an unreliable narrator, more often found in the written word rather than the spoken, and the audience must draw their own conclusions as to what has really happened. But the production is uneven, three out of the four monologues are overlong, and all three actors are guilty of making unnecessary restless movements. Paul Carroll in the title role – framing the whole and holding the play together – is excellent. He commands the stage. His lilting brogue, rich in quality, rises from a near whisper to a booming baritone and has us holding on to every word.

Tag Archives: Phillip Money

King Lear

★★★★

Wyndham’s Theatre

KING LEAR at Wyndham’s Theatre

★★★★

“an approachable and nothing-to-fear Lear”

“Allowing the text to breathe, he gives every consonant its full importance”

KING LEAR at Wyndham’s Theatre

Reviewed on 28th October 2023

by Phillip Money

Photography by Johan Persson

Previously reviewed at this venue:

Oklahoma! | ★★★★ | February 2023

Life of Pi | ★★★★★ | November 2021

King Lear

King Lear

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Faith Healer

★★★

Cambridge Arts Theatre

FAITH HEALER at the Cambridge Arts Theatre

★★★

“Paul Carroll in the title role – framing the whole and holding the play together – is excellent”