King Lear, BBC Two

The BBC has form with bringing Shakespeare to the small screen. Many of the best productions arrived between 1978 and 1985 as part of the BBC Television Shakespeare series, and a few years ago we got an amazing adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henriad in The Hollow Crown starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Ben Whishaw.

Anthony Hopkins, who starred in the BBC's 1981 adaptation of Othello, this bank holiday Monday returns as King Lear in the so-named Shakespeare play alongside some of the stalwarts of British acting Emma Thompson and Jim Broadbent, in a gritty adaptation of one of Shakespeare's most morose plays.



Spitting, hollow-eyed and gently descending into madness, Hopkins brings us 80 year-old King Lear the moment he decides to divide his kingdom between his daughters Goneril (Emma Thompson) Regan (Emily Watson) and Cordelia (Florence Pugh) based on how much affection they have for him.

Cordelia refuses to embellish the purity of her love for him, and is banished. Goneril and Regan, finding themselves more powerful than before, expel their ageing father just as Lear's Prime Minister Gloucester (Jim Broadbent) is himself betrayed by his children and forced into hiding.

Early previews of this TV film show a cast who roars and rages as King Lear becomes mad, in a forceful adaptation that updates this Shakespearian play with modern staging and twenty-first century military garb.