REPRISING his role as King Lear 15 years after he stood in for the late Brian Glover, Barrie Rutter brings a no-nonsense approach to his anti-heroic reading of Shakespeare’s tragic figure.

It’s a tactic that initially works well for Northern Broadsides’ latest production, which sees them once again team up with director Jonathan Miller.

The clipped accents and gruff delivery bring a domesticity to the drama, particularly when Rutter exasperatedly enquires about his maligned daughter Cordelia: “Will you tek her or leave her?”

The blunt vernacular also underpins the humour in a production for which the staging, in the hands of Isabella Bywater, is almost as sparse as the language. Elizabethan period costume and set on a raised platform with barely more than table and chair, this Lear offers little in the way of regal luxury.

The approach works less well after the interval, where the decision to lend equal weight to each scene drastically undercuts the central storm-on-the-heath speech.

This leaves the play without a focal point and, subsequently, it limps to a close despite a strong performance from John Branwell as Gloucester, who is literally blinded by the light during the scene in which his eyes are gouged out.

If he manages to capture an emotional transformation then Helen Sheals as Goneril and Nicola Sanderson as Regan undergo a reverse process.

There’s a cartoonish touch to their villainy at the play’s opening that’s a delight to watch but, as the action progresses, they lose their edge.

In a way their journey typifies the course of a production starting out with great promise but which is hardly sustained by its conclusion.

Tours until June 13, details:
northern-broadsides.co.uk

Review by Susan Darlington