Episode details
Available for 246 days
When better than now to make a drama about "the division of the kingdom"? A new production of Shakespeare's great tragedy with a Scottish cast headed by Ian McDiarmid as Lear and Bill Paterson as Gloucester. Lear is a very old king with a dynastic problem: three daughters and no sons. In dividing the kingdom between his children, Lear's reasoning is admirable: he wants to hand over the kingdom to his daughters so that "future strife / May be prevented now." But in doing so he sets in train a chain of events that lead to madness, self-discovery and the disintegration of the kingdom. King Lear ..... Ian McDiarmid Kent ..... Michael Nardone Goneril ..... Madeleine Worrall Regan ..... Frances Grey Cordelia ..... Joanna Vanderham Gloucester ..... Bill Paterson Edgar ..... Finn den Hertog Edmund ..... Paul Higgins The Fool ..... Brian Vernel Albany ..... Steven Robertson Cornwall ..... Steven Cree Oswald ..... Owen Whitelaw Burgundy/Doctor ..... Sean Murray King of France ..... Simon Harrison Old Man/Gentleman ..... Ewan Bailey Music performed by Polly Phillips (bassoon) and Georgina McGrath (double bass) Music and Sound Design by Gary C Newman Produced and directed by Gaynor Macfarlane.
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