King Lear (Series 5 Episode 1)

First transmitted 19th September 1982

Michael Hordern rages against the dying of the light

Cast: Michael Hordern (King Lear), Norman Rodway (Earl of Gloucester), Gillian Barge (Goneril), Penelope Wilton (Regan), Brenda Blethyn (Goneril), Frank Middlemass (The Fool), John Shrapnel (Earl of Kent), Anton Lesser (Edgar), Michael Kitchen (Edmund), John Bird (Duke of Albany), Julian Curry (Duke of Cornwall), John Grillo (Oswald), David Weston (Duke of Burgundy), Harry Waters (King of France), Ken Stott (Curran)

Director: Jonathan Miller

Well it’s been a while and, if it’s any excuse, I’ve been extraordinarily busy with the last play I directed in Oxford – none other than a certain King Lear. So gosh and blimey it’s been interesting watching this production while a host of my own ideas have been bubbling around my head: always an interesting time to watch any production. Added to this, I’ve got some rather fond memories of watching this production during my A-Level studies, where several performances made a real impression on me – not least John Shrapnel’s Kent and Michael Kitchen’s Edmund.

So it’s interesting watching it again now, especially as I have now seen so many of the other films in this series – as well as all the rest of the productions directed and produced by Miller. This was Miller’s last production for the series and, apparently, it was not his first choice to work on it. He had directed a BBC version seven years prior to this – also starring Michael Hordern as Lear and Frank Middlemass as the Fool – and proposed merely showing that production again as part of this series. When that idea was rejected, Miller was commissioned to direct a new production. Being, presumably, pleased with many elements of his last production, Miller recast many of the same actors and then reset elements of the first production within some of the new staging ideas he had been experimenting with throughout the series.

From Troilus and Timon through to Antony and Cleopatra, Miller had increasingly experimented with stripped down, impressionistic sets that bring the focus into the acting. He set the plays themselves in increasingly non-realistic settings that stress the heightened emotions and events that occur. This style also worked to eliminate the clunking realism of earlier productions (Romeo and Juliet and As You Like It spring instantly to mind). The location used here is a deliberately wooden stage, almost reminiscent of the original Globe theatre. A black backcloth is used to establish the background (and no effort is made to suggest it is anything other than a cloth). The only other location used is a bare wasteland for the storm scenes, which is adapted into a sandy wilderness for the final battle. It’s deliberately bleak and spare for a production that stresses the harsh and violent world of the play. It’s matched by the Velazquez-inspired costumes, all of which are black and white with only touches of colour to thematically link characters (such as the white in the Fool’s facepaint mirroring the white in Cordelia’s).

The camera work also aims to make the action “up close and personal” with a proliferation of close-ups that zoom in on the actors’ (often impassioned) faces as if to pull the emotions out like teeth. The storm scene in particular relies on a series of prolonged close-ups of Hordern’s soaked face, while the Fool and Kent can be seen in the background. Gloucester’s blinding is largely framed from a reverse close-up on the Earl tied to a chair. A common shot is a side-on close up in which an actor speaks while a second actor stands (out of focus slightly) alongside them facing the camera – this is repeatedly used, perhaps to suggest a continuing sense of events being “witnessed” by others.

Even wider-angle shots, such as the final death of Lear, use framing and actor positioning to create a triangular “zooming in” effect, where the visual attention of the viewer is pulled down towards Lear at a focal point of the other characters in the scene. Of course this decision to use close-ups isn’t always effective: noticeably during the fight sequence between Edmund and Edgar, the entire fight is delivered in tight close-up on Edmund’s face. Sure this might give the feeling that we are judging Edmund – but it also means it’s rather difficult to tell what is going on (particularly as the fast paced movement makes it hard for the cameraman to keep up!). 

Perhaps this is part of the issue with the production itself: it feels like almost a greatest hits of Miller’s directing for the series, rather than him bringing a fresh new perspective to the series. While Shrew and Antony and Cleopatra seemed like fresh interpretations, this seems more like Miller reworking the play in response to ideas rather than other way around - something I was less aware of when watching it all those years ago.

Miller’s general design aesthetic is to integrate the motivations and feelings of the characters very closely, and this forensic style is equally clear in Hordern’s studied and well observed performance as Lear, which is packed with little details here and there. Indeed, Miller and Hordern’s intention to tightly analyse Lear throughout actually rather stacks the deck, particularly in the opening scene, towards exploring Lear’s mental strength (or rather weakness). From the first scene Lear is clearly struggling – he even seems momentarily confused and a little lost when entering the court scene, before seeming to remember what he is there for. 

Throughout the early scenes of the play, his Lear is twitchy and uncertain, almost nervous about standing still, as if uncertain or determined to keep moving forward so he knows where he is. Although this onset of senility is overplayed, Hordern does really capture a sense of childish, almost sulky, capriciousness in Lear – Cordelia’s famous “nothing” is met with stunned silence, before a temperamental explosion (and the division of the kingdom into two has a fantastic improvisational feel to it) which is echoed again in his fury towards Goneril in A1 S4 (which even seems to shock the Fool in its viciousness). What’s particularly interesting about the performance of Lear in his pomp is that he never seems too regal, but more like a self-important bank manager.

His Lear is capable of warmth – he is clearly close to the Fool (as seen in A1 S5 and during the storm sequence) – and is able to demonstrate affection to Regan in A2 S4 (even if it is grounded in manipulation) but he is also clearly equally capable of self-delusion. In A1 S5 he distractedly mutters “I did her wrong” (of Cordelia) before clearly dismissing the thought from himself. In A2 S4 he seems to persuade himself that Regan is pleased to see him (despite all evidence to the contrary in Penelope Wilton’s stony reaction) before angrily lashing out. It all builds towards the impression of a man teetering on the edge of from the start, tipping during his impassioned raging during the storm. 

Edgar’s mania mesmerises and inspires him to embrace the storm inside himself, with Lear increasingly becoming lost in broken conversation and mutterings, despite keeping an air of firmness. His madness is in fact laced through nicely with moment of calmness and reflection – “for I lack soliders” in A4 S5 has a particular sadness, as if remembering his lost knights. The cruelty is still there – the mocking of Gloucester’s blindness has an edge to it – but there is a clear continuation of underlying character traits in Hodern’s performance from sanity to madness – which makes it even more unnecessary for him to overplay the madness traits in the opening scene.

Recovering from madness, Hordern is gentle and apologetic, delighting in Cordelia’s presence. Hordern holds her tight and can barely let her go, his eyes rarely straying towards anything or anybody else in the scene. Hordern is also particularly strong portraying Lear’s grief at the death of this beloved child, mixing again moments of pained clarity with an almost dreamlike lack of understanding and acceptance of the events around him. Hordern’s performance makes a very watchable performance of this role – but it seems to lack something, maybe because Hordern himself is not naturally a ‘charasmatic superstar actor’, with his style better suited to character roles (such as in All’s Well That Ends Well) rather than a more ‘glamourous’ part like Lear. His style inverted rather better as Prospero than it does here as Lear. He’s watchable and touching at several points, but he is never quite as moving as the part perhaps requires.

Away from the lead, there are of course several other performances of note. Michael Kitchen has a great deal of charisma (if not depth of character or motivation beyond “he is a villain”) as Edmund, though today visually he bears more than a passing resemblance to Blackadder. His bastard is a cool and relaxed man, determined and intelligent, who makes himself believable with a low-key assurance. Kitchen frequently looks into the camera – notably when kissing Goneril – involving the audience in his schemes. He makes a firm contrast with Anton Lesser’s at first more highly-strung Edgar (he even needs to clash both swords for Edgar in A2 S1). 

Lesser however adds a great deal of development to Edgar from A3 onwards, his Poor Tom is intense and vulnerable (though a design decision to give him a Christ like appearance – including stigmata – definitely overplays it). Edgar himself becomes increasingly still, distant and devout, going from mortified pain at Gloucester’s fate to a monkish authority and even a touch of cruelty after the killing of Oswald. In the final confrontation between the brothers, Edgar wears a death mask resembling Gloucester (a nice touch), and Edmund’s authoritative assurance is broken into a desire to salvage something from his life.

Of Lear’s children, Gillan Barge and Penelope Wilton are little too close to villainous from the start, both nakedly selfish and deceiving from the opening scene. Barge’s Goneril is an aloof, imperial figure, with a sternness that only slightly cracks under Lear’s vicious verbal assault in A1 S4 (which even Kent and the Fool seem shocked by) though she tightly holds her hands throughout, and she allows a triumph on “Do you mark that” as Lear exits. She seems a colder, more controlled figure than Wilton’s Regan, who comes across here as more instinctive. Wilton does use her softness as a performer to good effect however, her concern for Gloucester in A2 S1 a nice parallel for the blinding that will come. In that blinding she seems fascinated by the violence her husband unleashes, while her love for Edmund later seems almost fanatical in its devotion. Brenda Blethyn’s Cordelia has a surface softness that hides an inner determination, though her prominent dressing in white is in its way as heavy handed as Edgar’s stigmata.

As mentioned earlier, John Shrapnel is probably a stand out as a dutifully loyal Kent, a man who seems almost incapable of self definition but can only see himself in relation to others (specifically Lear or Cordelia) rather than finding his own way. The disguising of Kent works very effectively and he also brings a great deal of gruff humour to several key moments, while his desolation at the play’s end is strikingly effective. Norman Rodway makes an arrogant Gloucester who only finds wisdom when it is too late. Frank Middlemass’ Fool is a mountain of vibrant anger and comic aggression matched with a childish vulnerability and self pity at key moments.

So overall, there are many qualities to be admired in this production. But stylistically it’s not a complete success, with its televisual craft occasionally getting slightly in the way of the story. Its reliance on the close-up at points obscures the story (most notably in the storm scene) with several moments losing the impact of the wider emotional experience of the characters. Miller’s decision to not use cut aways in the many scenes that feature large numbers of people on stage (but only a few talking at any particular point) does mean that some actors get lost in the shuffle in scenes. Similarly heavy handed acting and design decisions (stigmata and Lear’s dementia for starters) take things too far.

But that is to ignore the good stuff on the table here. Many of the performers are excellent, particularly Kitchen, Shrapnel and Wilton while Hordern certainly gives everything he has to his Lear, even if the effect at times doesn’t quite match up to how I personally might see the character, and even if he sometimes lacks the charisma the role might require. But the cut down design works quite well (even if it isn’t particularly visually interesting) and the bleakness of the play is mirrored well in the black and white costumes on display. As a display of intelligent interpretation of this most complex play in the cannon, it is certainly far more interesting than many of the other great tragedies in the cannon – better than Hamlet, perhaps a little much of a shadow of Othello. And that perhaps is the final issue: it feels like Miller is simply reworking or resubmitting previous ideas from old productions (both of this play and others) rather than bringing a true unique freshness to it as he did with The Taming of the Shrew.

Conclusion

A solid production with several exciting performances and design flourishes: but it feels a little like Miller on autopilot, as if the production was almost done to complete his contract rather than because Miller felt he had something fresh, new or interesting to bring to the play. If it’s true that he wished to simply retransmit his original television production from a few years before, perhaps he felt that remounting the same production in the style of Othello and other productions was the next best thing. So, despite the good things here, it feels like a wasted opportunity, and a shame that a different director in the series – an Elijah Moshinky or Jane Howell – didn’t get a chance to put their own spin on the play. It’s still up there with the better of the productions, but it could have been better.

NEXT TIME: Richard Griffiths’ gets into all sorts of bother with other people’s wives in The Merry Wives of Windsor.