King Lear - Hampstead Parish Church

King Lear flyer

King Lear has for many years been my least favourite Shakespeare play and I had no intention of ever seeing it again. My heart sank when I saw it had been selected as the Hampstead Players' winter production for 2016 and, I admit, I only went to see it out of loyalty to the H. Players; Nicolas Holzapfel (King of France) in particular. The reasons for my dislike of King Lear are as follows:

• King Lear is a massive whinger and it's difficult to sympathise with him.
• The eye gouging scene.
• It's unadulteratedly mis and grim and depressing.
• I'm generally not a fan of plays where most of the characters' names are place names, i.e. Gloucester, Kent, Basingstoke etc. I seem to have a mental block where these are concerned and find it difficult to keep track of who's who.
• The eye gouging scene.
• Its extreme length.

However...this production was excellent and I'm glad I went to see it. And no, that's not just because of my association with the H. Players. It was fast-paced and had been adeptly pared down, which made it more absorbing and easier to follow. It helped that I was sitting in the front row and could see every facial expression and was able to feel part of the action. I hadn't realised how many famous Shakespeare phrases King Lear contained, including 'Childe Rowland to the dark tower came'. I'd thought that had originated with Robert Browning. All the references to madness and Bedlam were interesting, especially having recently gone to the Wellcome Collection's exhibition on Bedlam, which I would recommend! I was also impressed that this production contained humour, which I can't recall witnessing in any other production of Lear.

I admit I still struggled to sympathise with Lear, convincingly played as he was by David Gardner. I find it hard to get past the whole asking his daughters which one loves him best gambit, and his shoddy treatment of Cordelia. I really enjoyed the scenes with Lear and his Fool (Gaynor Bassey-Fish), though. I liked the attitude of the Fool towards Lear; it was simultaneously compassionate and unwilling to put up with his nonsense. Cordelia (Megan Britton) was appropriately cherubic and sympathetic, and her appearance later on in the play in camo gear made her appear more capable and action-oriented than one might expect. Her sociopathic sisters, Goneril (Margaret Pritchard Houston) and Regan (Emma Lyndon-Stanford) were played with subtlety rather than as full-blown pantomimic eeeeeeeeevil queens (although they do carry out unconscionable deeds, no question). Goneril's discomfort in the first scene, when compelled to flatter Lear, was evident. I found the scenes featuring Edgar (Matthew Williams) and his father, Gloucester (Bill Risebero), following the latter's blinding, moving. Edgar's character trajectory was probably the part of the play I found the most compelling.

Honorable mention goes to the Russian cavalry-esque trenchcoat circa 1905 sported by Albany (Jolyon Bohling) towards the end.

Is King Lear now my favourite Shakepeare play? We-ll, no. But it has been bumped up a few places. I would probably now put it above Titus Andronicus, The Two Gs of Verona, Love's Labours Lost and maybe even King John in my estimation. So, well done, Players!

The only weak link in this production, if it can be described as such, was Lear's crown, which thankfully only appeared in the first scene. It was a lovely stereotypical crown, but gave off a slight primary school nativity vibe. Which makes me wonder...does King Herod feature in nativity plays? I don't know, never having seen or experienced one.

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