King Lear, Wyndham's Theatre review ★★★★★

Kenneth Branagh returns to the stage for the first time in almost a decade to play a role one imagines he’s been plotting his interpretation of for some time. King Lear is considered a rite of passage for mature thesps, and with a long career playing Shakespeare’s leading gents, it was only a matter of time before Branagh put his mark on the king whose pride engineers his own downfall. Bizarrely, for an actor of Branagh’s experience, it’s a surprisingly unsubtle interpretation – one that descends disappointingly into melodrama.

There are two distinct themes at play in Branagh’s King Lear, which he directs as well as stars in with a supporting cast of Rada graduates.

Beyond the bravado of the opening scene, in which the king famously divvies up his kingdom between the two daughters who verbally proclaim their loving admiration for him, while disinheriting the thoughtfully silent third, Branagh’s boastful, hot-tempered and erratic Lear is clearly not a well man. Lines about his racing heart are given extra emphasis, and he clutches his head dramatically to signal the sudden onset of a headache. Lear's ailments sit at odds with Branagh’s own vitality, and speak of a man suffering from both physical and mental health anxiety.

Jessica Revell (Fool) and Kenneth Branagh (Lear) for the Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company's King Lear at Wyndham's Theatre. Photo: Johan Persson

Left there, it would have worked just fine. But Branagh tops this trope with moments so dramatic they undermine his whole production. His elongated wail as he carries on a dead Cordelia distracts our nascent sympathy, and when this gives way to a silent scream, his mouth frozen in an open ‘o’, it's verging on comical.

Branagh’s other big theme is setting his production, at least visually, in the Neolithic era. Framed by a Stonehenge-like circle designed by Jon Bausor, Branagh and his cast appear swaddled in furs and brandishing sticks, performing a tribal dance to Ben and Max Ringham’s percussion-led compositions. It’s heavily elemental too, with Nina Dunn’s projections conjuring stormy, shifting clouds and rain showers. This is effective until video footage of the warriors’ faces appear projected onto the stones – an unnecessary contemporary addition to an otherwise period piece.

The company for the Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company's King Lear at Wyndham's Theatre. Photo: Johan Persson

As the warriors gather to hear Lear divide his assets, the sense his daughters are the whole tribe’s daughters is pronounced. Deborah Alli is an appropriately fierce Goneril opposite Melanie-Joyce Bermudez’s sly Regan. Jessica Revell is earnest and quietly determined as Cordelia, and plays a cheeky, flighty Fool, too. Also on stage, and mirroring the drama of Lear’s own family, is that of Gloucester’s. Joseph Kloska gives a suitably woeful performance as the play’s other father who backs the wrong child. Doug Colling is a fireball of energy as the sincere son Edgar, while Corey Mylchreest is aptly menacing as Edmund.

At two hours straight through, it’s an unrelenting production that runs misguidedly on heightened drama from beginning to end. But in its storytelling, Branagh’s take is crisp and clear.