REVIEW ***** (five stars): King Lear aimed at ages seven-plus at the RSC’s Swan Theatre until Friday is magical and transformative
King Lear, a First Encounters production, the Swan Theatre, Stratford, until 31st October and then touring
KING Lear, it’s all about seeing clearly, innit?
The titular pensionable royal messes up majorly by dividing his kingdom between his two scheming daughters, Goneril and Regan, and leaving out his true favourite, youngest daughter Cordelia, after she refuses to suck up to him and gush about how much she loves him more than anyone ever just to earn her third of the kingdom.
Lear thinks he’s in for a cushty life being looked after during alternate stays at his two eldest’s estates – but his vanity and inability to see the bigger picture becomes his downfall.
The play goes on to embrace the blindness metaphor with such gusto that eyes are gleefully plucked out.
The complications of the story are deftly dealt with in the RSC’s blinding (geddit?!) First Encounters 80-minute whizz through King Lear, aimed at ages seven and up.
Somehow by the end of the show the grimness of the story (plot-spoiler upcoming!), which culminates in the deaths of Lear and Cordelia, is turned into something utterly magical.
I actually left the Swan with a big cheesy grin on my chops, a lightness in my heart and an uplifted spirit. And no, gin and tonic was not involved in said wellbeing, just an extraordinary cast well-directed by Justine Themen retelling an old tale with eye-opening renewed vigour.
The show opens with actor Nkhanise Phiri, who plays the Fool and Cordelia, giving her best Buttons-alike panto warm-up act. She is a giddy wonder, a natural comic who quickly has the audience of largely secondary school students in the palm of her hand.
She skips and gurns, getting the kids to holler the names of their schools as she quickly immerses them in her mad world as a who-can-shout-the-loudest game is afoot. Everyone present, even grumpy old teachers, absolutely revels in her tomfoolery.
There’s no snoozing at the back of the stalls as the amazing, multi-talented, trombone-playing company of eight actors burst onto the stage channeling the spirit and wit of wandering minstrels of ye olde days.
Everyone plays a blinder (geddit?!) – including (deep breath) Oliver Senton’s thunderously classical take on Lear; the gloriously bitching big sisters played by Vigs Otite as Regan and Leona Allen as Goneril; Scott Brooksbank as Albany/Cornwall – who is king of the side-eye, rivalling Tom Daley on Celebrity Traitors; Deven Modha lends Edgar a loveable warmth; Michele Moran as Gloucester has a commanding presence, and Lee Drage underpins his Edmund with suavellous villainy.
The abridged version allows a pacey telling, and the retained key lines of Shakespeare sing out with clarity and poeticness. But it’s the new epilogue after the story has ended that really transported this theatrical experience into something quite extraordinary.
Nkhanise appears once again as the audience-rousing Fool, leading the cast back on stage to deliver a speech about how the young audience need to take charge of the future and make their own decisions. At this point I honestly thought, ‘Oh no, they’ve lost it – and over-egged the Guardian-reading box-ticking didactic stuff’.
But lo, then something happened.
Nkhanise invites the audience to shout stuff out – anything that comes into their heads. Amid mounting hilarity the thoughts and slogans are proffered. “No more homework!”; “Down with school!”; “This is my wife!” (shouted by young girl about her mate, presumably for a laugh – it is greeted with cheers); “Get rid of Farage!” and, brilliantly randomly, “Ronaldo is better than Messi!”.
I’m aware that this may earn me a space in Private Eye’s Pseud’s Corner (not for the first time), but just the joy of being given agency in that theatre space and having their voices heard is clearly thrilling for the audience. Experiencing it was to witness the transformative power of theatre.
A brilliant, blinding revelation, you won’t see better.