600 King Lear

First  viewed : 3  April  1983

This  was  Channel  4's  Easter  night  offering  although  it  was  actually  made  by  Granada. David  Plowright  took  advantage  once  more  of  the  fact  that  Laurence  Olivier  was  his  bother-in-law  to  stage  a  star-studded  performance  of  Shakespeare's  monumental  tragedy. Besides  Larry  in  the  title  role  you  had  the  recently  deceased  John  Hurt  as  Fool , Dorothy  Tutin  and  Diana  Rigg  as  the  monstrous  sisters  Goneril  and  Regan  and  various  other  worthies. It  was  a  studio-bound  production.

I  didn't  watch  the  whole  thing  , perhaps  the  last  hour  or  so . Olivier  was  getting  rather  hammy  by  this  stage  in  his  career  but  it  was  watchable  enough. Diana  Rigg  looked  a  bit  too  nice  to  be  playing  such  a  horrible  character.