Lear’s Shadow

Devised and Performed By Colin Hurley

SPOILER ALERT: At the end of Shakespeare’s play Lear dies.

What I’m wondering is: what happens then? Come on, we all wonder that, sometimes, don’t we?  What happens after you die? Well, that’s where this show starts.

A man in a dressing gown shuffles in, carrying a box.  From the box he pulls the objects, people, quarrels, wrongs, jokes, mistakes, laughter and regrets that add up to a life. Over the next seventy minutes he retreads the path that brought him here, to This Great Stage of Fools: the loss of his daughters, the loss of his knights, the loss of his fool, the loss of his wits... oh, and the storm.  Don't forget the storm.  When The Rain Came.

Using only Shakespeare's words (reordered, repurposed, and often repeated) Lear's Shadow is a mischievous, engaging reflection on Shakespeare's great domestic tragedy.

Content Warning: this piece contains vivid depictions of Very Poor Parenting.

Colin Hurley has been acting for fifty years. Mostly in plays by dead people!

Works include: Royal National Theatre (Lear, Richard III) - The Globe - Including Twelfth Night in the West End and on Broadway as Sir Toby Belch. Royal Shakespeare Company - most recently as Brabantio in Othello. Film and TV work. Classical Acting lecturer at LAMDA.