An unhappy birthday for Shakespeare's tragic King Lear
Four hundred years ago today the first known performance of one of William Shakespeare's most powerful and heart-rending plays was presented at the court of James I at Whitehall.
Richard Burbage, the greatest actor of the age, is believed to have performed the title role as King Lear, the monarch who divided his kingdom and went mad.
The subject was tailor-made for James, who had been king of Scotland for 36 years when he ascended to the English throne in 1603 on the death of Elizabeth I.
He was desperately trying to unite the parliaments of London and Edinburgh, so a cautionary tale of the perils of division must have been music to his ears.
But while the political ramifications of Lear would have been clear to the contemporary audience, it is the human drama that has resonated through centuries.
As the director Richard Eyre observes in a documentary about the play on Radio 4 today, while it might not seem festive, the family row at the heart of it makes it curiously apt for Christmas.
Actors such as Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Olivier, Orson Welles, Nigel Hawthorne and Brian Cox and even one actress - Kathryn Hunter - have tackled a part which the actor Ian Holm said required "enormous stamina"....
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Richard Burbage, the greatest actor of the age, is believed to have performed the title role as King Lear, the monarch who divided his kingdom and went mad.
The subject was tailor-made for James, who had been king of Scotland for 36 years when he ascended to the English throne in 1603 on the death of Elizabeth I.
He was desperately trying to unite the parliaments of London and Edinburgh, so a cautionary tale of the perils of division must have been music to his ears.
But while the political ramifications of Lear would have been clear to the contemporary audience, it is the human drama that has resonated through centuries.
As the director Richard Eyre observes in a documentary about the play on Radio 4 today, while it might not seem festive, the family row at the heart of it makes it curiously apt for Christmas.
Actors such as Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Olivier, Orson Welles, Nigel Hawthorne and Brian Cox and even one actress - Kathryn Hunter - have tackled a part which the actor Ian Holm said required "enormous stamina"....