An English king resigns and divides his kingdom among his three daughters. Except the third daughter refused to play a stupid word game and now it’s divided between the remaining two daughters, with catastrophic results.
I didn’t know kings could resign.
That is very much the point. The idea is that kings are appointed by divine providence, so they can’t just resign. When this one does, everything goes crazy in agonizing slow motion.
That’s not very progressive language.
In this case, it’s accurate. There’s a great scene in the middle of the play where King Lear has lost his mind. He is accompanied by his court jester, whose job it is to be crazy, and another man who is on the run from the law and is pretending to be an escaped lunatic until things blow over.
But it has a happy ending, right?
No. Famously, it’s a tragedy. Although if you’ve read Game of Thrones and you can’t handle an unhappy ending, you should present yourself to the relevant authorities at first light.
What should I say to make people think I’ve read it?
“Nothing will come of nothing.”
What should I avoid saying when trying to convince people I’ve read it?
“I liked the bit where he gets the kingdom back.”
Should I actually read it?
No. Go see a production instead. If you saw the 2007 Trevor Nunn production, you’d have seen Ian McKellen’s penis.
Richard ArmitagelikedIan McKellen’s tweet today (18/05/22):
At 17, @Jake_Daniels11 represents a generation that rejects old-fashioned homophobia in football and elsewhere: those who haven’t yet grown up as he has. He sets an example. No wonder so many of us, gay and everyone else, admire & treasure him as a hero. What a goal he’s scored!
I saw this! I saw this! McKellen was great (of course) - from the first scene you could see he was the edge of losing his shit. At times doddery and vulnerable but then there would be moments of utter poise and strength, before switching to terrifying and vicious.
Cordelia was Tamara Lawrance (who recently played an excellent Viola in the National’s Twelfth Night) and she was brilliantly natural but forceful and a believeable leader of the French army.
The elder sisters were wooooonderful, too - as different as an apple to a crab - but equally capable of holding the stage. An unusually sympathetic Goneril, and a giggly and slightly intoxicated Regan.
Gloucester was just lovely (I spent ages trying to work out where I knew him from until I yelled out ALIEN 3 as we were getting drinks in the interval), and the post-blinding scenes were heartwrenching.
Edmund was devilishly charming, while Edmund was suitably earnest, and gradually fell to pieces seeing his dad so abused.
Set design was FABULOUSLY simplistic, based around a circular stage (the great thing about the Minerva is you have a great view wherever you sit) with REAL RAIN for the storm scene, and a gigantic portrait of Lear to open the play (see pic above).
But the best thing about it? Seriously. The fight choreography. It was orchestrated by Kate Waters and fuck me it was good. Like - they’re actually going to kill each other during the final duel kind of good. Edgar fought with a staff and he was full on slamming that thing down just inches from Edmund’s head. And the various stabbings and scuffles didn’t have that ‘stage fighty’ vibe to them - they were scrappy and up close and visceral. Literally the first thing we said to each other as we left the theatre was ‘oh my god the fight choreography’ - I mean, how often does that happen?
Chichester is good for Lear. I saw Frank Langella there a few years ago and it was similarly stunning. Highly recommend if you can make it.
Trying out Krita for the first time aaand… I think I’m pretty much in love with this particular brush. So here’s an unplanned digital ink sketch, a little less loose (still a mess though) than its traditional ink counterpart from the 28th of October.
…Derek Jacobi got a copy of Hamlet from Peter O’Toole …In 1963, Jacobi was Laertes to O’Toole’s prince. One day, O’Toole presented him with a book of Hamlet that once belonged to celebrated Victorian actor Johnston Forbes-Robertson [See below]. Jacobi later passed it on to Branagh who, in 2017, gave it to Tom Hiddleston when he directed him as Hamlet at Rada…
“There are not many things in my life I can be absolutely proud of or certain I got right, but one of them is that I’ve got better as an actor. I’ve learnt how to do it. And I still have enough energy to do it.”
“There are not many things in my life I can be absolutely proud of or certain I got right, but one of them is that I’ve got better as an actor. I’ve learnt how to do it. And I still have enough energy to do it.”
On this day 20 years ago, Ian McKellen arrived in New Zealand and joined the cast on January 10, 2000 to begin filming Peter Jackson’s epic the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Thank you for all the magical and wonderful memories.
- [For Lord of The Rings] I had to do huge battle scenes, and in Hollywood films when it gets to big crowds it’s really only at most two thousand people. But Tolkien writes about Helm’s Deep and ten thousand Uruk-hai, and the only way to do that was in a computer. So we created the “Massive” software, where each of the computer people makes its own choices. At the first test screen we had 30 CGI people running at each other and half of them turned and ran away, so we had to dumb them down and tell them to stay fighting.
- You don’t know how the battle is gonna turn out?
- No. If you have orcs fighting elves, you teach CGI orcs how to fight like orcs and CGI elves to fight like elves. You’re literally not in control. You have this huge battle scenes with horses for and that renders for about three days and we don’t know what it’s gonna be like, so we wait and see.
- [Per il Signore degli Anelli] dovevo fare scene di battaglia enormi, e nei film di Hollywood quando si tratta di grandi folle in realtà al massimo ci sono duemila persone. Ma Tolkien parla del Fosso di Helm e diecimila Uruk-hai, e l’unico modo di farlo era a computer. Quindi abbiamo creato il software “Massive”, dove ogni “persona da computer” fa le proprie scelte. Ai primi screen test c’erano 30 persone CGI che si correvano addosso, e la metà si è girata ed è scappata via, quindi abbiamo dovuto renderle meno intelligenti e dirgli di rimanere a combattere.
- Quindi non sapevate come sarebbe andata la battaglia?
- No. Se hai degli orchi che combattono gli elfi, insegni agli orchi CGI a combattere come orchi e agli elfi CGI a combattere come elfi. Non li puoi controllare. Hai queste scene di battaglia enormi con i cavalli e le fai andare per circa tre giorni e non sai come verrà, quindi attendi.
Now available EXCLUSIVELY on Acorn TV: Theatreland, a behind-the-scenes documentary featuring super biffles Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen as they star in a production of Waiting for Godot.
