The opening scene of Dominic Dromgoole’s production is a jolly affair. Everyone seems to think Lear’s retirement is cool. Nobody seems surprised. The two Wicked Sisters sound identical; so do their husbands. Then Cordelia puts her foot in it, which makes you think a character is about to emerge - but no such luck. It’s as if the production were halfway through the rehearsal period, when the actors know who they are to play, but don’t quite know how. David Calder’s Lear is a fussy old man, given to petulance and displays of vulnerability, but apart from drums and trumpets when he enters, you get little sense of his arrogance and power. If this is a play about catastrophic issues of power, it is unfit for purpose.

Calder is one of his generation’s finest actors, a man of great power and deep sensitivity who can read a character’s soul. Here, he is on his own. His relationship with a Fool who doesn’t seem to get his own jokes is almost nonexistent. His scene with the blind Gloucester, who says his lines as if reading from a prayer book, is without pain or pathos.

This is the least moving Lear I have seen. It has no focus, no tempo, no sense of tragic doom. Actors are moved about for no apparent reason. The storm scene, which has no sense of terror, is preceded by tramps slouching about looking hungry. It is a soft Lear, a flat Lear, a let’s-do-a-play Lear. It asks no questions and looks for no answers. The readiness is not all.

Shakespeare’s Globe, SE1

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