An overly pretentious production, the talents of Brian Blessed were wasted. He is the director of this version of King Lear, and he has chosen to clutter the production with cheesy special effects and out-of-the ordinary camera angles. These unnecessary tricks only distract the viewer away from a complex interplay of characters and dialogue. Brian Blessed plays larger-than-life characters with ease and skill, and he was born to portray the title character. Sadly, this is a less-than-acceptable version of this classic. It is no overstatement to say that this production of King Lear was not Blessed, but cursed!
