King Lear

The fool was almost completely cut, but this is a good version anyway. Gotta remember it was made for TV and take it as it is. I read somewhere that someone said once that they had never seen a bad version of "Hamlet", and that goes for Lear, too, though (big Peter Brook fan that I am) Peter Brook's version is one that I haven't made it all the way through quite yet. The running time here has been cut by almost an hour and a half, but that is OK. Patrick Magee started slowly, but his journey into madness is very effective. I have yet to see the version done by Laurence Olivier and I have high hopes for it. I am very happy with this version.

Sandwiched between versions done by Paul Scofield and Laurence Olivier is this Thames Television version of King Lear. In the title role Patrick Magee definitely holds his own against the two acting knights though my favorite still remains the one Olivier did.

Thames made the decision that this would be a mini-series given to the British television audience in six episodes. If that was the case then I'm at a loss why the part of Lear's fool is nearly cut out of the play. The Fool, especially when played by John Hurt in the Olivier production has some of the best lines Shakespeare ever wrote. So it might have been a seven or eight part mini-series.

Magee does well as the old King, getting a little stupid in his dotage and the victim of base flattery by his two oldest daughters. When third daughter doesn't kiss up to him enough he cuts her out of her share of the kingdom and lives long enough to regret that.

Besides Magee the one to watch in this production is Patrick Mower as Edmund of Gloucester. Illegitimate of birth and feeling the pangs of it, he schemes as intricately as Richard III to get to the top. Unlike Richard III he's not bad looking and uses that to full advantage with all of Lear's daughters to some degree.

A good production, but I'll stick with Olivier and Scofield.