Branagh can’t quite banish the spirit of Noel Edmonds: King Lear, at Wyndham’s Theatre, reviewed

Branagh vs Lear. The big fixture in theatreland ends in a win for Shakespeare’s knotty and intractable script which usually defeats any attempt to make it coherent or dramatically pleasing. This truncated version is a two-hour slug-fest set in the stone age – and it sort of works. The warriors fight with sharpened walking sticks and they stab each other using twigs whetted to a fine point. If you ignore the steel buckles and the writing paper, which were clearly invented earlier, you’ll find it just about believable. On stage, Branagh can’t quite banish the spirit of Noel Edmonds and he adds to the cheeky-chappie persona with a thick golden quiff (possibly a wig) and a mink collar that seems to have been backcombed and scented with talcum powder. In Lear’s court, all the menfolk resemble costumed Vikings at a Norwegian tourist attraction. The females wear off-the-shoulder furs and pashminas like dollybirds from a 1970s porn film.