The Stage

King Lear

Published Thursday 16 February 2012 at 10:49 by Jeremy Brien

When Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory launched on an unsuspecting Bristol public with this self-same tragic masterpiece at the turn of the millennium, there were just a dozen people out front on opening night. Yet by the end of the run, word of mouth had already sparked a rush for tickets and such is the company’s enviable reputation 12 years later that a sell-out is assured for the entire six weeks.

John Shrapnel (Lear) and Trevor Cooper (Earl Of Gloucester) in King Lear at the Tobacco Factory, Bristol Photo: Tristram Kenton

Artistic director Andrew Hilton and his 17-strong cast, led by John Shrapnel’s angry and desolate Lear, allow the tragedy to unfold in all its subtleties. The heart-rending final scene, where Lear carries in the dead Cordelia in his arms, remains one of the pinnacles of English drama. But the complicated and fast-moving narrative, built round the blinding of Gloucester and the clash of his legitimate and illegitimate sons, is tailor-made for the company’s clear-cut presentation style and trademark intimacy with the Tobacco Factory audience.

Shrapnel, who played Gloucester to Pete Postlethwaite’s controversial Lear at Liverpool in 2008, illuminates the titanic struggle of both mind and soul with impressive authority. Trevor Cooper’s Gloucester is a man at least as much sinned against as his King, mainly by Julia Hills and Dorothea Myer-Bennett as ice-cold sisters from hell Goneril and Regan. They are matched by Jack Whitam’s attractively malevolent Edmund. In contrast, Eleanor Yates is a feisty yet simple Cordelia, while Simon Armstrong’s upright Kent is one of the performances of the evening.