King Lear 2023

Run Time:
Approximately 2 hours No interval

Ages: 12+

Opened: October 31, 2023
Closing: December 09, 2023

King Lear - 2023 West End History , Info & More

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Wyndham's Theatre

(Leicester Square) Charing Cross Road London

Kenneth Branagh will direct and play the title role for 50 performances only at Wyndham’s Theatre from 21 October.

King Lear - 2023 - West End Cast

FEATURED REVIEWS FOR King Lear

Kenneth Branagh helms a pared-down tragedy

6 / 10

Branagh’s central performance is ultimately, and surprisingly, underwhelming in its psychologically discontinuous presentation of Lear. Like many in the cast, he either overaccentuates or underpitches his delivery, vacillating between extremes of emotion without fully inhabiting the part’s profound subtleties. Especially in the play’s first half, his oscillations between capricious, bombastic king and bruised father often feel abrupt and synthetic.

Kenneth Branagh’s production is overblown and insubstantial

2 / 10

It’s perhaps Shakespeare’s most harrowing tragedy: an epic vortex of familial trauma, dementia, atrocity and war. Kenneth Branagh’s production – in which he also stars – fillets and compresses the play into just two interval-free hours. Yet it feels interminable. Confused in concept and clumsy in execution, it manages to be at once overblown and insubstantial. It is crammed with florid gesture and self-conscious declaiming, and offers scarcely a single moment of emotional truth.

King Lear FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

How long has King Lear been running on the West End?

King Lear opened at the Wyndham's Theatre on Tuesday Oct 31, 2023 and has now been running for 1 month.

King Lear History

Other Productions of King Lear

1754	Broadway	Broadway
1905	Broadway	Broadway
1906	Broadway	Broadway
1907	Broadway	Broadway
1907	Broadway	Broadway
1907	Broadway	Broadway
1909	Broadway	Broadway
1911	Broadway	Broadway
1915	Broadway	Broadway
1917	Broadway	Broadway
1918	Broadway	Broadway
1923	Broadway	Broadway
1930	Broadway	Broadway
1930	Broadway	Broadway
1947	Broadway	Broadway
1950	Broadway	Broadway
1962	Off-Broadway	Off-Broadway
1968	Broadway	Broadway
1973	Off-Broadway	Off-Broadway
1978	Off-Broadway	Off-Broadway
1982	Off-Broadway	Off-Broadway
1990	Off-Broadway	Off-Broadway
1996	Off-Broadway	Off-Broadway
2004	Broadway	Lincoln Center Revival Broadway
2006	Off-Broadway	Off-Broadway
2007	Off-Broadway	Off-Broadway
2011	Off-Broadway	Public Theater Production Off-Broadway
2014	Off-Broadway	Off-Broadway
2014	Off-Broadway	Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park Off-Broadway
2016	West End	Old Vic Revival Production West End
2018	West End	Chichester Festival Theatre West End Revival West End
2019	Broadway	Broadway Revival Broadway
2023	West End	West End
2024	Off-Broadway	Off-Broadway Production Off-Broadway

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