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Product Description
Product Description
This performance of "King Lear" features an all-star cast.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
42 of 42 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
If you are looking for a recording of one of the greatest plays ever written or love this play anyway, buy, buy this recording. This production assembles a truly magnificent cast headed by Paul Schofield whose Lear, recorded at around 80, is breath-taking. I don't know of a finer recording of Shakespeare. Lauded by the press, you don't even have to know the text or be 'into' theatre to be drawn into this drama. Harriet Watrer, Alec McCowan, Kenneth Branagh - what a cast! Branach perhaps is a bit irritating as the fool, but that is my only cavil. I love this recording - one to return to again and again. I'm not ashamed to say I wept at the end.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
8 reviews
39 of 39 people found the following review helpful
Scofield's second recording after 36 years
28 April 2002
Format:Audio CD
<King Lear> Is there a need for yet another recording of "King Lear"? If it is a superlative reading, then one would quote "Reason not the need" and accept it for a great addition to a swelling library of complete Shakespeare on recordings. We still have available on Caedmon audio tapes the 1965 "Lear" with Paul Scofield in the title role with Pamela Brown and Rachel Roberts as that particularly nasty pair of sisters, Goneril and Regan. 1988 brought out the BBC Audio Book (Modern Library) with Alec Guiness, Jill Bennett and Eilen Atkins in those roles. In 1994 there was a BBC Radio set with John Gielgud, Judi Dench and Eileen Atkins (again) in those three roles; while a late addition to the Arkangel Complete Shakespeare series gave us Trevor Peacock, Penny Downie and Samantha Bond, Peacock giving a more domestic, less grand reading of the role.
Now Naxos Audiobooks has released on tape and CD yet another version with Paul Scofield again, Harriet Walter (Gonerill, as it is spelled on this set), Sara Kestelman (Regan), Emilia Fox (Cordelia), Peter Blythe (Albany), and Jack Klaff (Cornwall) as the dysfunctional royal family. As the parallel set, we have Alec McCowen (Gloucester), Richard McCabe (Edgar), and Toby Stephens (Edmond).
While Kenneth Branagh played the villainous brother in the Gielgud set, he is assigned the Fool in this production with David Burke (Kent) and Matthew Morgan (Oswald).
The reading in the Caedmon recording is in the grand manner, more poetical than is the most recent; but this Naxos effort seems to move faster, is more dramatic (as should be no surprise) in our sense of the word in that it is more realistic, more "modern" sounding. But I would not dismiss the older set by any means.
I found Scofield less earth-shaking in this production, sounding a little more reasonable and vulnerable than in the earlier one--but after 36 years and under a new director (Howard Sackler in 1965, John Tydeman here), an actor must rethink the role. What I do appreciate is that every word in the storm scene is spoken clearly and not drowned out by the sound effects.
All Drama departments should own both Scofield versions. This Naxos release is available on tape (NA324414) and CD (NA324412). It is also the best buy since Naxos is the supreme budget label.
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Lear
9 Mar 2003
Format:Audio CD
Although the liner notes describing portions of Act 4 in the boxed set I received were a little amiss, it would be hard to see how the performance itself could be improved. Paul Scofield is absolutely extraordinary as Lear as is Alec McGowen as Glouster and Kenneth Branagh as the Fool. Five stars isn't enough! It's rare that a story like this, which can become quite complex if one isn't familiar with the action, can literally jump off the recording and present us with visual images all along the way. Every actor deserves the highest praise for his/her performance!
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Terrible Sound Mixing--although good voice acting
6 Nov 2008
Format:Audio CD
I love King Lear and I love Paul Scofield, who voices Lear in this production. I bet it was a dynamite version to see live. But this audio recording suffers from terrible sound mixing. Some people have used the phrase "voices dropping out" to describe the problem, but I'd say simply that they did too little post-production mixing. The volumes are wildly divergent. This is most audible when someone speaks an aside--if you turn the volume up enough to hear this line, the next line spoken at regular volume will rattle your speakers (and eardrums). But it's a problem even in scenes with actors of different vocal styles--some people are way too loud and others very hard to hear. To give this complaint some context, I've never reviewed anything negatively on Amazon before. But this is a production problem--like getting a book printed on cheap paper--not just a matter of taste. They should have fixed this (and still could if they wanted to), and it really deserves a negative rating to warn people off of it.
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