Title: King Lear Meets Star Wars
Product review: The casting director should have spared us the bow to diversity and political correctness when a hispanic was cast as France and a negro as Burgundy. Set design and costume sacrificed tradition and historical representation to economy and off-beat originality. The costumes resemble those of Star Wars. The Fool, instead of being youthful, agile and entertaining, is fat, old and dumpy. The most entertaining thing about the fool is Lear referring to the grizzled 70 year-old as "boy". Holms as Lear can't hold a candle to Lawrence Oliver. Holms plays every scene with the same, monotonous, high level of intensity, like a manic Lear. He is unable to play Lear as a likeable, sympathetic character, in any scene. During the scene in which Lear's heart is supposed to break when Cordelia fails to declare her love with sufficient eloquence, Holms' Lear only comes accross as manic, obsessed and neurotic. Even with its poor film quality, Sir Lawrence Oliver's production is the best.
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