A very fit and mobile Derek Jacobi give a performance which will live long for its austere minimalist majesty.
Though it is almost sacrilegious to say , Shakespeare has a dramatic lapse in conveying the graduation from top down aspirations to hand over absolute power to a troika of wards , albeit to his own blood.From self satisfaction to outright incurable rage does not quite happen convincingly.And less convincing are justifications that tyrants playing at being benevolent would behave in that way , but there is a certain tone of our bard can do no wrong about their argumentation.
This point is worth remembering because King Lear , of all the major roles of Shakespeare , is one in which the actor has to get past this in order to proceed to the much stronger balance later in the play without it appearing to be a melodrama rather than a study of the closest of universal familial and close knot social society themes this otherwise great work explores.
Derek does a great job as the role he plays is more emotional than overtly political , which is the easiest get-out way to look into the role , with bombast and hysterics replacing the substance.
Derek takes the role full on and shows his class by achieving all the good points with an almost nonchalant degree of ease.
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