King Lear West End

King Lear 2023

Run Time:
Approximately 2 hours No interval
Ages: 12+
Opened: October 31, 2023
Closing: December 09, 2023

King Lear - 2023 - West End History , Info & More

Wyndham's Theatre
(Leicester Square) Charing Cross Road London

Kenneth Branagh will direct and play the title role for 50 performances only at Wyndham’s Theatre from 21 October.

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FEATURED REVIEWS FOR King Lear

The veteran actor directs and plays the title role in a brisk and curiously weightless London production.
4 / 10

The production feels like an accomplished rhetorical exercise that doesn’t run deep, when this, of all plays, needs to rattle the soul. The litmus test of any “Lear” is whether you emerge from the theater moist-eyed, and my cheeks were dry throughout.

Kenneth Branagh’s fast and feverish tragedy
6 / 10

Staged at a hurtling two hours with no interval, it is almost cinematic in its action-packed speed, which on stage appears like haste. Actors barrel from one scene to another with too few pauses. This divests the play of its deep, meditative qualities on the nature of being, ageing and questions of the soul.

Review Roundup: Kenneth Branagh's KING LEAR Opens in the West End. What Did the Critics Think?
by Aliya Al-Hassan - November 1, 2023


Kenneth Branagh returns to the West End to direct and play the title role in William Shakespeare’s KING LEAR, for 50 performances only. Completing the cast is a company of RADA graduates.

Review: KING LEAR, Wyndham's Theatre
by Alexander Cohen - November 1, 2023


Alarm bells ring when a director stars in the play they are also directing. Even if that director is Sir Kenneth Branagh. Nine times out of ten the production falls flat and the audience are left wondering if ego is to blame. Branagh’s hotly anticipated stab at King Lear is, sadly, no exception.

Photos: Inside Rehearsals for The Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company's KING LEAR
by Aliya Al-Hassan - October 3, 2023


Images have been released from inside the rehearsal room for The Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company’s King Lear. Check out the photos here.

King Lear FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

How long has King Lear been running on the West End?
King Lear opened at the Wyndham's Theatre on Tuesday Oct 31, 2023 and has now been running for 1 month.

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