Short Synopsis
The monumental tragedy of an old king who decides to divide his kingdom among his daughters, but imposes a love test on each to merit her portion. His youngest daughter, Cordelia, refuses to flatter him falsely, sending Lear into a rage. He withdraws her portion, exiles his best friend, and generally becomes increasingly irrational. Cordelia leaves to marry the King of France. His eldest daughters subsequently turn on him, finally tossing him out into a stormy night. In a parallel plot, Lear’s close friend Gloucester succumbs to the plot of Edmund, his bastard son, who wants the rights of a legitimate son. As this plot develops, Gloucester’s legitimate son Edgar must flee and disguise himself, as Edmund becomes sexually embroiled with Lear’s two daughters, and with them the politics of the kingdom. As Lear rails against man and nature during a violent storm on the heath, Gloucester becomes involved in an invasion from France. Betrayed by Edmund, he loses both his eyes. In this wretched state he attempts suicide, but is spared by Edgar. He then meets Lear in a reunion of madness and blindness – “reason in madness” as Edgar describes it. Next Lear reunites with Cordelia in a moment of sublime forgiveness. But the war is lost. Edmund has Cordelia hung while in prison. One daughter poisons the other, then commits suicide. Edgar kills Edmund in a duel, but not in time to save Cordelia. Lear finally dies over her dead body in grief. As one of those still alive at the end observes, “our present business is general woe.”
Cast
King Lear – Ian McKellen
Goneril – Frances Barber
Regan – Monica Dolan
Cordelia – Romola Garai
Albany – Julian Harries
Cornwall – Guy Williams
Gloucester – William Gaunt
Edgar – Ben Meyjes
Edmund – Philip Winchester
Kent – Jonathon Hyde
Fool – Sylvester McCoy
The PBS film version of this play may be purchased now at www.shoppbs.org. Put ‘King Lear’ in the search bar.
Thank you PBS! I caught this when it was broadcast earlier in the week. Now I can go back and what some of my favorite part (most certainly the storm scene).
Thank you so much for posting this! I saw this performance a few years ago in Stratford-Upon-Avon and it changed my life. I’ve been dying to share it with friends and family, and now I can! I’m not sure I can imagine a better performance of Lear.
Watching this KING LEAR was a life-altering experience, proving, once again, how great art presented intimately and at home, can illuminate the intricacies of a classic play in startling new ways.
Anyone who has an elderly parent can grasp just how accutely and sensitively the Shakespeare/Mckellen/Nunn triumverate collides classic with contempory to create a revelatory television experience.
Only public television would/could bring this experience to us. I, for one, am profoundly grateful.
I so agree having recently experienced the death of one and the decline and death of the second — and having two siblings. It is cathartic to watch the masterful performances of all the actors, especially the three daughters, just right in every detail, and sir ian, whom I met on another shakespearean first night 20 years ago. He never disappoints. I have not seen this play since I was 11 in England. And now want to read it again. Human nature is truly a bitch! Here, literally!
This is terrific
The best to be expected for a filmed production of Shakespeare. Mckellen is superb, as well as many others. But can anyone explain to me why Lear and the fool kiss on the lips?
So moving. Thank you.
Who knew such quality could also be found in a corner of cyberspace!
Fantastic production of the play! With superb performances by everyone!
It’s a shame the part of Edgar was so cut, but other than that it’s the best performance I’ve seen.
[...] page will include Parts 1-5, and will be available only through May 3, 2009). Great Performances: King Lear: Sir Ian McKellan plays the title role in this latest adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragic [...]
i didnt see any thing about the king lear
This is one of the best productions of King lear I have seen–and heard. I have directed this play and taught it for many years, and I have not seen Lear portrayed with more verisimilitude than Ian McKellen does it here. Lear is a formidable physical authoritarian presence (with deep seated anxiety about his authority) and initially intimidates everyone. As portrayed in this production, only Cordelia and Kent and France dare stand up to him in the progress scene. Cordelia, who is often portrayed as honest but timid, is portrayed here as honest but forceful. It works. So too, Edmund, Kent, Gloucester, Edgar, Goneril, Regan, Albany et al. are potrayed with complexity and work well together. The disappearance of the fool is cleverly played with the literal hanging of the fool in the hovel by Edmund and his co-consprators–accounting for Lear’s reference to “my poor fool is hanged” in the concluding scene. I have seen/read this play a hundred times–and yet, it seemed as fresh and compelling to me as if I were seeing it for the first time. Bravo!
My favorite actor in my favorite play. Does it get any better than this? Truly brilliant!
I’m 70 and a retired teacher.This has been one of the best gifts I’ve received in my life. Thank you!
[...] Whoa! Hela »Kung Lear« i en filmad Royal Shakespeare Company-uppsättning med Ian McKellen i titelrollen går att titta på alldeles gratis online hos amerikanska PBS: Great Performances [...]
[...] Ian Mckellan plays King Lear. And you can watch the whole thing online! [...]
[...] King Lear in its entirety, if you click here. This production stars Ian McKellen, among many others. Saturday, June 6th, 2009, similar ideas [...]
[...] (2007), then on a worldwide tour, before filming the production for public television. You can watch it all right here, and if you want to follow the original text, you can get it from MIT’s Shakespeare web site [...]
[...] (2007), then on a worldwide tour, before filming the production for public television. You can watch it all right here, and if you want to follow the original text, you can get it from MIT’s Shakespeare web site, [...]
Great! I got this through OpenCulture.com and am enjoying it!
It is misdirection to encourage an actor to play a halting, wobbling, enfeebled and enervated Lear. Lear should be made of sterner stuff. He is old, certainly. But he also survives the storm, murders “the fool that was a-hanging thee”, and physically carries the body of his daughter. No weak, limping old man could do any of these things. Rather, it requires of man of strength and strong constitution. I like McKellen. And he does a nice job in the role. But his take, or that of his director, is a rather typical take on Lear. Would that someone would play the old King with more outward physical strength and imposing force.
[...] benefícios da web: o canal PBS colocou na web a íntegra de “Rei Lear”, de Shakespeare, na interpretação de Ian McKellen (foto). Em inglês, sem legendas. Se quiser seguir o texto [...]
This play is much better than we originally thought! It has helped us with our A level in english.
I adore Shakespeare, especially the ‘classics’ such as King Lear, Hamlet and Macbeth. But my absolute favourite kind of viewing are such productions aasd this one where the sole reliant is the quality of the acting and not on how pretty and/or grandiose the sets are. Lovely!
Ian McKellen is fantastic as King Lear and the quality of the supporting cast makes this, for me, such a wonderful viewing. I bought the DVD solely on being able to view this here.
Thanks PBS.
I think Act IV Scene 3 is missing, togegher with the last bit of scene 2, should be in between “Albany rebukes the whore Goneril” and “Cordelia back in England, orders Lear found”,
I was wondering if you can upload it?
Thanks alot for showing the play by the way.
Actually, the McKellen film cuts all of ACT IV Scene 3 and the last bits of the scene before (along with more than a thousand other lines). The play text on this site shows exactly what the film cuts and what it keeps of the play.
[...] Lamb that we have the actual plays and poetry.) Tonight we’re watching Ian McKellen as King Lear. Amy (who loves books) suggested In Search of Shakespeare. I haven’t found a place to watch [...]
Thank you for posting this. I never got a chance to watch King Lear in person and this is the next best thing.
I am sitting my Leaving Certificate in Ireland this summer so this link is a lifesaver. Thank you PBS.
je t’envoie le lien , c’est super
Thanks so much for posting this, just fantastic. My favourite ever version of King Lear…McKellen is just astounding.
so great. just turned off a brand new version of hamet by the royal shakespeare company on great performances tonight shot like a play. but this, this was shot and edited for television. thank you, ian!!!!!
this was fantastic, than, you for posting
thanks for this, it helped a lot for study!
Thanks PBS, for posting this on the web like this. I saw thee rerun of KL last night on GP, and thought a second viewing would be good. I was about to buy the DVD, but thanks again you’ve saved me $25 + shipping. (Maybe for Xmas,…) In addition I’d like to add I’m not upset that they cut Sir Ian’s “nude scene”. I remember in Oliviers Lear (also from Great perf’s but in the 1980’s) at about thee saame place in thhe play we got a long and disturbing gander at Oliviers sagging pectoral man boobs. I know they’re all great shakespearean actors, but I don’t think the play is anyway lessened by leaving Sir William the Trouser Snake off the playbill. Thanks again PBS.
This is the best performance (and really handy too!) of king lear i’ve seen and it has been very helpful as i prepare for an english exam on the play. thank you very much!
thank you for your effort
i love this
it is gr8888
This was fantastic! My highschool literature class read this novel and had the priviledge to go to this website and watch the film along with our reading. It really helped to make the novel real, and helped as well with my understanding of the story line. Thank you PBS, this is truly a blessing.
the play was terrific this is one of the greatest plays discussed by my literature class
I just wish they didn’t skip so many dang lines!
This play was Marvelous! Ian McKellen made the show come to life in the opening scenes and the rest of the cast provided the rest of the migaic! Brilliant performances! Thank you PBS!
My only problem with this version is that it takes away what makes Edmund such and interesting character; his duality, the peices of script that humanize him.
This is the correct play according to the story…….it is a tribute to Shakespeare…….great performance………..
this is the acme to portray this play…. very interesting and heart touching……….
King Lear’s dialogue denies Cordelia and sends off Kent in his share of empire furnished with beautiful elements where the play unfolds and the evil appears to conquer the good. In this dialogue King Lear appears as a great superhero and he does not repent even at the last second of his speech towards his daughters and he destruction of the personal tragedy and brutality that he brings in the play.
The king Lear’s play appears with a diction full of brutality and with no mercy, where the evil is crowned up until the last moment of the end. As of today, it’s a deducted moral lesson for all of us that have neglected and confused the theory of goodness. Edgar is characterised by the king as a villain and a treacherous person who radically tries to be in disposition with Lear. A meaningless case appears during the dialogue and the chaotic suffering is based on materialistic terms where there is no love but selfishness and open reality of the truth.
They do know that as years go by King Lear and Gloucester at the end will die having suffered a tremendous pain, yet gained wisdom all those years in a spark of joy, which enabled them to have a great sense of insight and experience. In spite of the regeneration that they achieve at the end, Lear and Gloucester are due to die at the end and as the deaths seem to be proper Lear’s death does not seem to be meaningless.
King Lear was the one who show triumphant and proud with his selfishness on those moments of his dialogue via terms of wisdom. A case in point is that when he recalls united the kingdom in the name of a god to weep with his voice against the others. Many other people not involved in his tragedy died for it such as the war between France and Britain, which ended in thousands of numbers of deaths in both parties. Although Cordelia was bound by honoured duty and obedience to Lear, and she tried to overthrow the evil reign of Goneril and Regan, she tried to overprotect king Lear, since his follies always tried to fight his regeneration of his universe.
At the end the death of Gloucester and Lear are totally unfair, let alone the death of Cordelia. In the dialogue provided Cordelia is presented with a truthful character as opposed to the others ladies, when she tries hardly to protect and help her father as he shows his resent on her behalf. We do know that Cordelia at the end is murdered by a captain who was bribed by Edmond in a brutal way. That gave insight to King Lear to understand that life is a meaningless circle. It is unfair that she died in the play and the manner that a man had to use such brutality against her.
The whole play is accounted by many deaths even those that are not stated throughout the play between the war of England and France. The element that we have to argue in the play as the good overrules finally the evil. Shakespeare tries to show in a way that man should, could and can carve his destiny, either by choosing the wrong way and be destructive or have the freedom of choice and reach the spiritual goodness
In king Lear Shakespeare shows that here is in reality a great sense of justice in evil and destruction for all our hopes. It is only through goodness and spiritual hope that we can reach to our desired bond.
Thank you very very very much this video is a lifesaver
MANY THANKS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’ve been enjoying it, but while watching it on the iPad, it’s incredibly blurry, to the point where the faces are completely blurred out, and I can’t seem to figure out how to fix the resolution!
What a wonderful way to start the new year! My class has just activated their blogs so this is perfect timing for us. Looking forward to the challenges.
I just wish they didn’t skip so many dang lines!
It’s not a bad production, but I can’t say for me it’s a knock out for me. McKellen is outstanding as Lear, and perhaps defines the role. The rest of the cast is only so-so, though Hyde as Kent is excellent. I was appalled they had the Fool hanged in Act III. That’s not in the play. The sudden disappearence of the fool is very important thematically. That really altered the meaning of the Fool’s role. And I’m with Estafana above: I wish they didn’t skip so much.
I ran into the same problem and found that turning on wifi sync on my IPad solved the problem. I hope this works for everyone else.
Nice read, I just passed this onto a friend who was doing a little research on that. And he just bought me lunch since I found it for him smile Thus let me rephrase that: Thank you for lunch! “Procrastination is the thief of time.” by Edward Young.
Thanks for the inspiration
Excellent post Max, and a very nice site. I’ll be back for more!