King Lear
1982: Jonathan Miller
This is the BBC Shakespeare Plays treatment of King Lear, and as such it has fairly limited production values, but the performances are worth looking at, and sometimes the whole production achieves a level that is considerably greater than the sum of its parts.
The art direction in this version of Lear is a bit peculiar: the play is given in a somber, almost Puritanical, late Elizabethan garb. It is a color production that seems to go out of its way to pretend to be black and white. The camera work dwells so much on very tight closeups that at points the whole seems very claustrophobic. For all that, however, it contains some moments of real energy. Miller’s productions were not (I think) of the caliber of some of the earlier entries in the series, but they are interestingly directed.
Michael Hordern was perhaps one of the least appreciated actors of his overall ability. He was often pigeon-holed in comic roles (e.g., A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum), but his range was much wider, and here he shows something of that range. To the role of Lear he brings a classic sensibility of what the play is about, and how the character can be portrayed without a particular angle or agenda or overlay of any sort. It does not, perhaps, break any remarkable new ground — but it is a very solid representation of a fairly canonical understanding of the play.
Captain: Tim Brown
Cordelia: Brenda Blethyn
Curan: Ken Stott
Doctor: George Howe
Duke of Albany: John Bird
Duke of Burgundy: David Weston
Duke of Cornwall: Julian Curry
Earl of Gloucester: Norman Rodway
Earl of Kent: John Shrapnel
Edgar: Anton Lesser
Edmund: Michael Kitchen
First Gentleman: Iain Armstrong
First Servant: Stuart Blake
Fool: Frank Middlemass
Goneril: Gillian Barge
Herald: Adam Kurakin
King Lear: Michael Hordern
King of France: Harry Waters
Officer: Richard Albrecht
Oswald: John Grillo
Regan: Penelope Wilton
Second Gentleman: John Dallimore
Second Servant: Tony Sympson
Third Gentleman: Fraser Wilson
Third Servant: Peter Walmsley
Buy the complete BBC Shakespeare Plays at Amazon. Note that this will require a Region 2 player or a region-free player: it will not play on most normal American DVD players. Nevertheless, the price is so reasonable that even with a region-free player thrown into the deal, you’ll come out ahead.
Buy the BBC Shakespeare Plays Tragedies Giftbox at Amazon. Unlike the complete series, this is in a North American video format, and it includes five plays: Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, King Lear, Timon of Athens, and Titus Andronicus.
Buy the complete set of the BBC Shakespeare Plays or individual plays (including this one) in Region 1 format direct from Ambrose Video.