Sponsored by Julius Bär

On Sunday afternoon, off to a matinée performance of King Lear at the National, sponsored by Julius Bär (see http://www.juliusbaer.com/htm/302/en/Homepage.htm. Never before heard of, but who look to be a proper outfit to serve the rich list of London) and mainly performed by Simon Russell Beale de Penang. We selected a matinée in the mistaken belief that the thing ran for more than four hours, length seeming to be the way to do it these days, and thought that this might be more bearable in the afternoon than in the evening. As it turned out, the running time was the rather more modest three hours, exclusive of interval, and we made the distance without strain, probably helped along the way by the rather more comfortable seats than are offered by the Globe, the scene of our last Lear back in 2008 (see May 9th and 16th in the other place). And before that it might have been as far back as 1997, with the incomparable Ian Holm in the lead, before blogs were invented.

Clever staging, with only a modest amount of furniture & props and with scene & scenic effects supplied by projection onto the back drop. Plus a sound track which started off with a low hum which I thought to be scene setting but which was actually the air conditioning, moving on to thunder, lightning and helicopters. It was clever, but in the end it was also rather intrusive, detracting from words which were already sometimes hard to hear, with the cast spending a lot of time facing the back drop rather than us.

A lot of extras dressed up as soldiers, perhaps the apprentices mentioned in the programme. The whole done in modern dress, which I find a bit irritating, preferring vaguely Jacobean dress, and which included the use of sheath knives, flick knives or pen knives in place of swords, which I also found irritating. Cordelia marching in at one point in battle dress and brandishing some kind of a machine gun seemed completely out of character.

I did not much care for Kent, who did not, to my mind, get the tricky balance between earl and loyal servant (of the old-sweat sergeant variety in this production) quite right. I did not much care for Edmund either, for me too fat and lacking menace and drive (a problem I have had in the past with many Globe actors), but BH thought he was fine, exuding the proper amount of sex-appeal. But impressed, once again, how both Oswald and Edmund manage to do the right thing in extremis, rather marred in the case of the first mentioned by titters from the audience. There were inappropriate titters in at least one other place and at least two mobile phones went off.

But I did like Lear and his Fool, in this being helped along by having had FIL with us for the last four years of his long life - and the lady next to us had had the care of her mother through 10 years of dementia, which we thought must have been sailing a bit close to the wind. Perhaps attendance should be compulsory for all aging monarchs. Perhaps also the CEO of News Corp?

Thinking it about it afterwards, I thought that the whole sorry mess was mainly Cordelia's fault. Lear going mad was an act of god, no-one could have done anything about that, but she could have played along in the opening scene a bit instead of pulling her purity stunt, got her share of the dibs and so been able to take on the role of his carer, a role she was clearly cut out for. The lot of them might then have survived.

We paused on the way home at the 'Half way House' at Earlsfield to sample their 2010 Marsanne from the All Saints Estate, Rutherglen, Australia. Pleasant little wine, in which we rather liked the casual notes of cinnamon. Surprised afterwards by how low a large aeroplane was on the flight path down to Heathrow. Had the pilot strayed a bit?

I shall go again and will perhaps catch more of the words on a second outing.