Review: King Lear, Bristol Old Vic

Although Shakespeare invented many words, ‘overkill’ was not one of them. Which is surprising, since it’s the term that perfectly captures the conclusion of any decent Jacobean tragedy – including King Lear. At the end of the evening, the Bristol Old Vic stage is carpeted in corpses, with virtually every main character dead. And all because an old man got a bit grumpy.

Lear is a play about the consequences of irascibility and impulsiveness. Both Lear (Timothy West) and Gloucester (David Hargreaves) jump to conclusions and reject the child who – with poetic inevitability – turns out to be the ‘good one’: and everyone suffers the fallout. If there is a message to the play, it’s ‘think hard before doing something drastic’. It’s perhaps no coincidence that the loudest – and bitterest – audience laugh came for the line ‘Get thee glass eyes, and like a scurvy politician seem to see the things thou dost not’.

This production, as part of the Old Vic’s 250th anniversary season, brings together seasoned veterans (West, Hargreaves, Stephanie Cole) with actors currently studying at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. There’s always a thrill to watching BOVTS students perform: you may be watching a star of the future. And many of them are very good. Although it’s clear that a few of the students are, as yet, a little overwhelmed by the sudden jump up to playing in the Premier League, Danann McAleer (Kent) and Alex York as a truly oleaginous Edmund, in particular, already seem very at home on the Theatre Royal stage.

Obviously one of the draws is the chance to see the legendary Timothy West, a sprightly 81, play Lear. He delivers a performance which is far from the ‘giving us his Lear’ that one might expect of a grand old actor. Instead, it’s a Lear who is very Timothy West: growly, understated – and very crotchety.

But the real revelation is Stephanie Cole as the Fool. An actress who can sometimes irritate tremendously, it feels as if Shakespeare wrote the part especially for her. Her distinctive, downbeat comic style blends perfectly with the words, making even a Shakespearean Fool (some of the least funny characters ever written) sound genuinely witty.

And when they work together, West and Cole give us a very cute old couple, at one point sharing a bench like two long-married pensioners, bantering with the affection and familiarity of years spent together.  Director Tom Morris was truly inspired in casting Cole.

Otherwise, Morris’s inspiration is a little thin on the ground. On an almost bare stage, the actors have little to do apart from wander to and fro. Groups of performers loom in the background in many scenes, but their symbolism is unclear. The costumes seem to be trying to communicate something, but it’s not entirely clear what it is. It’s all a little vague.

Yet one thing that’s certainly not vague is the thunder in the storm scene. The 200 year old ‘thunder run’ – basically a bowling alley for cannonballs, located over the auditorium and rediscovered during the recent renovations – has been refurbished, and it works. You will never have experienced such realistic, sensurround thunder in a theatre. It may be worth seeing this production just for that – and for Cole’s Fool, and West simply being himself, and a few up-and-coming stars.

King Lear continues at Bristol Old Vic until Sunday, July 10. For more info and to book tickets, visit www.bristololdvic.org.uk/kinglear.html

Photos by Simon Annand

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