Reviews of A New Kind Of Wilderness, The Marching Band, Good One and Magic Farm by MARIA DUARTE, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MICHAL BONCZA
Latest editorial
McKellen’s tour de force mesmerises
Ian McKellen (right) as King Lear
SCOTT ALSWORTH foresees the coming of the smaller, leaner, and class conscious indie studio, with art as its guiding star
MARJORIE MAYO recommends an accessible and unsettling novel that uses a true incident of death in the Channel to raise questions of wider moral responsibility
MIK SABIERS wallows in a night of political punk and funk that fires both barrels at Trump
Reasonable radicalism, death in Abu Dhabi, locked-room romance, and sleuthing in the Blitz
SIMON DUFF recommends a new album from renowned composer and oud player Anour Brahem.
JAMES WALSH has a great night in the company of basketball players, quantum physicists and the exquisite timing of Rosie Jones
King Lear
Duke of York’s Theatre
London WC 2
★★★★
HOWEVER many times I see King Lear, my first instinct is always to marvel yet again at the wild and fearless excesses of the original play.
It takes us right to the sharp end of human life where power crumbles to nothing, where the blind lead the blind, where folly rules and where the Fool — a creature of oblique instincts, waywardness and caprice — stumbles on essential truths that seem somehow off limits to the reasoned mind.
It’s a powerhouse of imagination and an unparalleled penetration of the human condition in a godless and structure-less world.
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