The reviews are in for King Lear at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, the production that marks the theatre’s 50th anniversary and brings David Threlfall back to its stage after 27 years. Matthew Dunster has adapted and directed the play in modern dress, with Isobel Akuwudike as Cordelia, Nadine Shah as Goneril and Lisa Diveney as Regan, and he has cut the Fool altogether, so that Lear speaks the part himself. Threlfall’s performance is admired almost everywhere, and two critics give the evening full marks. Dunster’s interventions are another matter: the doubling of Lear and the Fool, the party scenes and the treatment of the daughters divide the critics sharply, and the Manchester Evening News adds a doubt about the performance itself, finding more madman than king.
The verdict: ten reviews so far, eight of them rated: two five-star notices, three four-star and three three-star, an average of 3.9 out of 5. Almost every critic admires David Threlfall. What splits them is Matthew Dunster’s rewriting, above all the decision to cut the Fool and give his lines to Lear, and how much the production gives Lear’s daughters to work with.
What are critics saying about KING LEAR?
North West End
Reviewer: Brian Madden
Brian Madden sees the production as a fitting way to mark the Royal Exchange’s 50th anniversary. He reads David Threlfall’s decline as the collapse of a whole identity rather than a simple loss of reason, and credits Matthew Dunster with turning the in-the-round space into a pressure cooker.
“Powerful, dark, and deeply moving, Matthew Dunster’s King Lear is a masterclass in classical theatre reimagined.”
He expects the performance to be remembered as one of the defining moments of the theatre’s anniversary year.
The Reviews Hub
Reviewer: Kerry Mullen
Kerry Mullen finds a bold, atmospheric staging that keeps its pace and leaves room for dark humour, so the sudden turns to violence land all the harder.
“Even when Lear behaves badly, Threlfall makes it possible to feel for him.”
She singles out Tom Varey’s Edgar and Jonathan Slinger’s Gloucester, finds Nadine Shah’s Goneril and Lisa Diveney’s Regan sharp and dangerous, and admires the chains of Anna Fleischle’s set.
Theatre and Tonic
Reviewer: Siobhan
Siobhan watches Threlfall’s Lear lose his power, his family and his grip on reality, and finds it both compelling and heartbreaking. The in-the-round space, she says, puts the audience uncomfortably close to the betrayals.
“Matthew Dunster’s direction gives this Shakespearean classic a contemporary edge”
Her one warning is practical: at around three hours, it is not a quick night out.
West End Best Friend
Reviewer: Hannah Goldswain
Hannah Goldswain is taken with the scale of it, from the storm that hangs over the stage to the curtains of chain that rise and fall around the actors.
“Threlfall’s Lear is masterful in the descent into madness.”
Her reservation is the sisters: she finds Goneril and Regan played with conviction but written down to calculating, sexualised figures, while the male characters are drawn far more fully.
The Guardian
“David Threlfall makes a moving Lear, but why is he playing the Fool too?”
Reviewer: Mark Lawson
Mark Lawson reads Dunster’s modern-dress staging, all jeans, car keys and handguns, as a drama of dynasty, centred on the young plotting around a failing head of the family.
“Within this gimmickry, Threlfall delivers a fairly classic Lear, deeply affecting in the deathbed scenes”
His objection is to the boldest change: Threlfall speaks the Fool’s lines himself, and Lawson thinks the play loses its one source of comedy as a result. He finds Isobel Akuwudike’s Cordelia intriguing.
WhatsOnStage
Reviewer: Amanda Dunlop
Amanda Dunlop admires a Lear whose decline will feel familiar to anyone whose family has lived with dementia, and praises the Gloucester family, from Slinger to Paddy Stafford’s Edmund and Varey’s Edgar.
“A brilliant Lear is at the heart of a production that struggles to give his daughters sufficient dramatic weight.”
She also finds Fleischle’s columns of chain beautiful in the storm but sometimes in the way of the sightlines, and concludes that the production never quite matches its star.
Manchester Evening News
“Threlfall’s king is missing his crown”
Reviewer: Rob Williams
Rob Williams thinks Threlfall is so locked into Lear’s madness that the king’s arrogance goes missing, and that some lines come out garbled. He has strong praise for Lisa Diveney’s Regan and Nadine Shah’s Goneril.
“This is not a bad Lear by any means, and Threlfall is miraculously watchable”
He cannot see what the scenes of writhing, scantily clad dancers add, but respects a production that fails, where it does, through boldness rather than caution.
Read Rob Williams’s full review in the Manchester Evening News
British Theatre Guide
Reviewer: David Chadderton
David Chadderton stresses that this is very much Dunster’s version, built on Shakespeare’s text, with Lear speaking the Fool’s lines in a different voice as a sign of his growing madness. He finds Threlfall’s stubborn old man frustrating but deeply sympathetic.
“There are some great performances that make this a show worth seeing.”
Overall he is unsure what to make of it: something seems missing in the storytelling and some choices baffle him, and it still runs to more than three hours.
Read David Chadderton’s full review at British Theatre Guide
Production photographs by Helen Murray.
Also reviewed by: The Times (Dominic Maxwell, “In thrall to David Threlfall”) and The Stage (John Murphy, four stars, “Matthew Dunster’s fresh, alternative take on Lear boasts a fine performance from David Threlfall”), whose reviews sit behind paywalls.
For more of this week’s openings, see our review roundups for Little Shop of Horrors at Hope Mill Theatre, Fences at the Lyric Hammersmith and NINA at Battersea Arts Centre.
King Lear runs at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, until 15 November 2026.
