King Lear

[goodgoalie]

Anyone have the slightest idea what's going on? Me neither.

[Buenchico]

I'm not watching it (although, now you've mentioned it, I might take a look on catch-up later).

Perhaps this will help though?
http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/lear/summary/

[Toorak]

I

[goodgoalie]

Eh?

[maggiebee]

Just your usual happy evening's viewing!

[Toorak]

Sorry!

I saw a donmar production with derek Jacobi as Lear a few years ago and put the fact that I couldn’t figure out what was happening down to the poor sound production. I’m not much clearer now - but to be fair it’s not a play I am very familiar with

[Jackdaw33]

Shakespeare wrote his plays with the specific intention that 300 years later adolescent schoolchildren would be bored rigid by having to explain ad nauseam why which character did or said what. Needless to say, I am not a fan.

[kvalidir]

I don't like Anthony Hopkins so i decided not to watch it however someone just called me and asked if I'd seen it as it is ' a car crash' so might have a look later, fairly sure it can't be that bad.

[gness]

I really dislike Antony Hopkins.....he's one of the very few people I could slap.....
I have recorded this because I love Shakespeare....but then I had a brilliant teacher .....only dull teachers bore children.....but if it's Hopkins and car crash perhaps I'll give it a miss.....after a peep.... ;-)

[goodgoalie]

Oh, kval, it is as bad as that, I assure you! After 50 minutes I could bear no more, mostly because I couldn't make out what Hopkins was saying/shouting. That with the modern setting and the now-tedious but seemingly obligatory 'colour-blind' casting that makes a nonsense of the play as written.

[gness]

Oh really, GG?..... Bums.... :-(

[kvalidir]

I think he's a really vile man, but I'm also a massive Shakespeare lover and every time someone does a naff version of Shakespeare it make me sad because it's so wonderful and relevant done properly, and then some feckwit goes and puts another huge clump pf people off it :/

[gness]

Snap, Kval.....when we could barely afford it we went to see Antony and Cleopatra in London.....Judy Dench was just brilliant....by the interval I was almost in tears over the performance Hopkins was giving....he was awful....
By coincidence I met his dresser shortly after and he asked my how I found the performance.....I told him and what I thought of his darling Tony, as he called him..... he hasn't spoken to me for about twenty five years now...
Some time later I heard Hopkins being interviewed about his performance and he said he was bored rigid with the role.....I think he was in his cups too.....horrid man.....
And yes....putting folk off Shakespeare is an offence punishable by............ insert your own punishment.....x

[tiggerblue10]

I love Anthony Hopkins but besides that I thought I was alone in not understanding King Lear. I've never really understood any of Shakespeare's works tbh and often find ye olde English hard to make sense of.