Lear’s Shadow • Jack Studio Theatre

Lear’s Shadow

devised and performed by Colin Hurley

Shadow: (n) 1 a dark shape formed when an object blocks a source of light 2 reflected image 3 spirit, ghost 4 actor, player

“Lie here and rest a while”

An old man in a dressing gown shuffles into the space carrying a box. Out of the box pour the objects, people, wrongs, jokes, mistakes, laughter and regrets that make up a life.

Over the next seventy minutes he is swept up by moments in the journey that brought him here, to this great stage of fools: the loss of three daughters, the loss of his knights, the loss of his fool, the loss of his wits. Oh, and the storm. Don’t forget the storm. When The Rain Came…

Using only Shakespeare’s words Colin Hurley’s Lear’s Shadow is an inventive and engaging reflection on Shakespeare’s great domestic tragedy.

Content warning: this piece includes vivid representations of poor parenting.

Colin Hurley has been an actor for forty years, is a former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre, and played in 20 productions at Shakespeare’s Globe (including playing Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night at The Globe, in the West End and on Broadway). He also trains and plays regularly with experimental theatre company ‘The Factory’.

Press for this production

‘Hurley’s performance is a tour de force… He engaged with the audience brilliantly… well worth watching.’ ★★★★ North West End
‘It is great fun, and he has shaped what Shakespeare wrote for his own ends so that the tale of how Lear ends up on that heath in a storm comes over perfectly. As a contribution to all the celebrations of the Bard taking place at present this is probably the most unusual and none the worse for that.’ ★★★★ ReviewsGate

‘a superb one-man performance… Throughout the 70-minute performance, Hurley captivates’ ★★★★ Theatre and Arts Review
‘Hurley delivers a surprising, irresistibly human and comic Lear. This is more an ordinary man with a man’s vanities and vulnerabilities, yet there is an air of decayed nobility about him… Lear’s Shadow is a consistently engaging distillate of Shakespeare’s iconic tragedy. It may come from behind the weighty tragedy, but it throws light onto its darkness. British Theatre Guide