King Lear is generally acknowledged to be Shakespeare’s greatest work. The play is notoriously difficult, excessively long, deeply harrowing and, not surprisingly, his least popular tragedy.
Kenneth Branagh acts and directs a two-hour long King Lear without interval. The text is massively cut. His poor studenty production, set in an Ancient Neolithic Stonehenge Britain, is well below the standard you would expect on the West End stage and his own performance fails to have the impact it should have.
The inexperienced supporting cast is drawn from RADA alumni and most of them are miscast and giving superficial performances. Kent and Oswald have been turned into women to no advantage. Cordelia and the Fool are played by the same actor.
If you want to see Kenneth Branagh at his Shakespearean best, my advice would be to give his King Lear a miss and to watch instead three fine Shakespearian films he has acted and directed: Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing and Hamlet.
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