King Lear is a tragedy. We know it is a tragedy because there is nil by dancing. The scenes usually reserved for dancing and revels have been filled by humongous amounts of stabbing, gouging, poisoning and hanging. Shakespeare may have been under the illusion that he was being paid by the corpse. It may also have been a hangover from the history cycle where the only thing left living at the end is an amoeba wielding a bloody sword.
The body count in King Lear is huge, so much so they had to build extra square footage on the stage at the Globe to get all the bodies in comfortably. In the dress rehearsal the pile of corpses was so high that the audience couldn’t actually see the one cast member still alive at the end without forming a human pyramid.
Because it is a tragedy there is also extensive use of the European ketchup reserves, some lychees (all will be explained) and a great deal of low level moaning. The gore-ometer pinged off the scale somewhere in Act Three and ironically beheaded one of the audience.
It is also a long tragedy. You may want to read this in several sittings, or alternately, the very short explanation in Wikipedia. I was going to break it up into chunks, but as it has taken several weeks and a tragedy of my own to complete it I simply can’t be arsed.
There is a lot of irony in King Lear. There is dramatic irony (which means that it is irony in a play. You will recognise this type of irony because it wears tights and kisses everyone, ‘mwah’) and ordinary irony, which is common and low and you wouldn’t like it to live next door to you because of all the knowing looks, inappropriate music and wisecracks. If you are low on irony it can be found in beetroot, spinach, and the entire works of Samuel Beckett.
Now the thing that is quite ironic about King Lear is that he is a king. The clue is in the title. The irony is that about a millisecond after walking on stage King Lear gives up all his rights as king and is pretty much known as Lear for the entire duration of the play. Lear is a Latin word which means ‘bluddy grate fule’.
The beginning of King Lear is a lot like the title credits for that classic piece of televisual genius, Hong Kong Phooey:
‘Who is this King King Lear?
Is it Goneril, the eldest daughter? NO!
Regan, the psychopathic daughter? NO!
Cordelia the wet as a reservoir daughter? NO!
The Fool? The rudest nincompoop in town?
Maybe? Might as well be!
Old King Lear, he used to be a super guy. Old King Lear as crazy as a fox’s eye. Chic a Wow, Chic a Wow, Chic a Wow Wow Wow. Etc’
So, heaping irony upon irony until we have so much irony we could build a foundry we have a classic Shakespearean reversal of roles manoeuvre. This happens sometimes in the tragedies. It is the closest we get to the gender bending of the comedies. Clearly in a comedy it was alright to throw in twins and frock swapping and a bit of ‘It’s behind you!’ but in the tragedies it just won’t do. Giant comedy bosoms are frowned upon. They are just not sad enough. Codpieces droop, hems get trodden on. All is woe, woe, thrice woe.
Instead we have Lear becoming a fool, while the Fool, who has won ‘Most annoying character in a tragedy’ for the past four hundred years and has now had to build a new mantelpiece for all his awards, becomes wiser and more strokey of beard, albeit still capering round and singing songs about eggs.
About half way through the play the Fool mysteriously disappears and is only referred to in passing when someone casually mentions that he has been hung off stage somewhere (probably Basingstoke). This is not surprising. His hilarious hi jinks in the thunderstorm where instead of cutting the crap and learning to weave ponchos out of ferns in a Ray Mears stylie he just beats everyone about the head with a bladder on a stick are enough to make him top of everyone’s blacklist. It’s a little known fact that there is a lost scene where Lear slips Regan’s manservant a groat to off the Fool as quick as you like and no mistake. Even though Lear is his mortal enemy the servant agrees.
All are united in their hatred for the Fool. This is why jesters are just not fashionable anymore, they’re too bloody annoying and their outfits are murder to look at if you’ve got a hangover. Just imagine living with Mr. Claypole from Rentaghost for a week and you’ll get my drift.
Right. On with the show.
Lear is having a big shindig. It’s not clear what is being celebrated exactly, perhaps the fact that after twenty years he’s finally gotten round to retiling the guest bathroom in the west turret, I don’t know. Nevertheless, everyone who is anyone is present and accounted for. Capers have been capered, rugs have been cut, Asti has been quaffed and everyone has declared their undying love for each other and sniggered at pictures of the Gloucester’s bottom from when he sat on the photocopier. It is now time for the set speeches.
Set speeches in Shakespeare are not really ‘good things’. Speeches are generally indicative of some sort of almighty bombshell which is about to be flung faster than a gibbon with a handful of dung. Favourite topics for Shakespearean speeches in tragedy include:
- You killed my father and slept with my mother, you ingrate.
- All my relatives have come back from the dead wearing sheets and demanding that I avenge myself against you. Just hold this vol au vent for a minute while I get this sword out.
- I might mention blood a lot. Did I mention there would be a lot of blood? Blood will be a motif during this, my fine speech about blood.
- My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die (wrong genre, but you get the idea).
Speeches by kings are much more troubling than speeches made by ordinary plebs. Kings may have shinier hats, but they are not well favoured in Shakespeare. It is the general rule of thumb that anyone who is, was or wants to be a king is going to end up slumped in a ditch getting up close and personal with their innards and wondering why some man with a moustache is using their head for a bowling ball. Generally they also go mad, usually before they are deaded, but not always. (See Hamlet’s father).
King is Latin for ‘lamb to the slaughter,’ in this dramatic context. The only Shakespearean king I can think of offhand who comes out of things smelling of roses is Henry V. That was probably his reward for having to be best mates with Falstaff for three plays. He had already worked out his purgatory on earth, thus allowing him to be released from the curse of kings, which is to be thought of throughout as a wanker and then die horribly.
Lear makes his great speech. Translated into modern English it reads thus: ‘Look at me everyone. Look at me. See my shiny crown. Behold my kinginess and rain down awe upon me. Did I mention it’s all about me? I hope you’ve included receipts with my presents.’
After this we get to the nub of things. Lear has three daughters, Eeny, Meeny and Miny. No, no. Goneril, the eldest who has a big chip on her shoulder because everyone is always saying: ‘You’re the oldest, you should know better,’ and clipping her round the ear with a mitre for sitting with her legs apart and scratching her wimple. She is sulky, petulant and demanding. She has a t-shirt with the legend: ‘It’s not fair!’ emblazoned on it in Coca Cola style writing. She makes Violet Elizabeth look well balanced and forgiving.
Then there’s Regan. Regan is the classic middle child, i.e. as mad as a box of frogs and vicious in her insanity. She is quite modern in her approach to matters royal. She likes flash cars, money and fame and hates all her relatives equally. She attends all Royal executions and take notes. She has grade five beheading and is a whiz at needlepoint due to her love of sharp, shiny things. She is a sexual predator and scares the living crap out of all the men around her by staring knowingly at their cod pieces and winking a lot.
Cordelia is the youngest. She is annoyingly smug and has clearly been babied and spoiled rotten even though she is forty seven and should know better. Whenever she says anything her sisters talk over her, muttering ‘goo goo, ga ga’ and making sucking noises. She doesn’t care. She is very passive aggressive. She is always either a) looking pensive, b) whining or c) being resolute and staring into the middle distance.
She is Lear’s favourite, which annoys Goneril. At this very party there are also two men slavering over her like wolves over a particularly princess shaped sausage, which annoys Regan. Life has been a piece of piss up until now and will continue to be so as long as daddy is in charge. She is in for a fabulous surprise. Lucky, lucky, lucky.
Lear announces that frankly ruling the country is a bit of a drag. He has to mingle with the proles and they all smell of damp dog. He is bored of thinking up more and more elaborate taxes since there was a riot over the moustache tax of 1601, which he has never gotten over. He wants to retire from office, returning to the limelight only for parties, bar mitzvahs and drunken karaoke sessions with his Fool and best mate, The Earl of Kent. His star turn is ‘I did it my way.’
As such he is going to divide his kingdom into three random parts and give the biggest bit to the daughter that can convince him that she loves him most. He has divided them into animal shapes, rhino, pygmy hippo and elephant shrew. He is totally convinced that Cordelia is going to get the rhino, but lets them all stand up and have a stab at it anyway. Just to see what will happen.
This pisses Goneril off no end. She hates a foregone conclusion. Shifting her bosom truculently like Les Dawson she stomps to the dais, grabs the mike and gives it half an hour of waxing lyrical over daddy dearest. She bats her eyelashes so hard she leaves dents in her cheeks. Everyone is sickened, but claps loudly just in case she wins.
Regan, not to be outdone, simpers up and practically fellates the microphone in her eagerness to please king daddy the great. Sweat rolls down her exposed cleavage in rivers, and windows have to be opened. Kent doesn’t know what to do with himself, he is usually more interested in learning to lag pipes and has suddenly gone all unnecessary. The Duke of Cornwall, who is Regan’s husband, is looking around like a man who has just won first prize in the ‘world’s largest marrow’ competition. All the other men in the room hate him.
Goneril spits daggers and gives Regan the evils. They both unite in their hatred of Cordelia and spew forth acid onto the stage as she steps up. The Duke of Albany, Goneril’s milksop husband, is sent backstage to give a sovereign to the sound engineer if he will only create a mysterious power cut. No dice. The surrounding nobles want to see blood spilt. Curses.
Cordelia fluffs it. She hates crowds and doesn’t see why she should prove her love to the man to whom she owes everything. Her head aches and she can’t have cake because Goneril stubbed her fag out in the icing. She is Cordelia, and frankly that should be enough. She stands back, secure that daddy loves her enough not to make her do things she doesn’t like. She tips a wink to her darling sisters and sashays off.
Unfortunately Lear failed ‘A’ Level women and his only foray into psychology was reading Mystic Meg’s predictions on a rainy bank holiday in Margate when the Fool threw his book into the sea. He is not pleased that Cordelia won’t play the game. His fragile ego is not up to a pasting from his beloved child. She is especially annoying him because he has already had a bet with the footman that she’s going to win and have a purple flag with a gold rhino on it as her standard. He stands to lose his honour, his dignity and fifty quid. It just won’t do.
He becomes instantly enraged and disinherits her on the spot. Goneril and Regan are hugging each other and wetting their pants with excitement. They haven’t had such fun since their dear old mother died horribly in a Go Karting accident on the Isle of Wight and they pushed Cordelia into the open grave at the funeral.
Dwelling obsessively on his fifty quid and how many fish suppers that would have bought, Lear decides Cordelia has not suffered enough. He summons her two suitors, the Duke of Burgundy and the King of France. He explains that Cordelia is an evil killer spawn child. Not only that but she will now be a penniless pauper who will suck her future husband as dry as a husk and tell everyone at court how small his codpiece actually is. Should either suitor still want to marry her, he is welcome, but don’t expect anything from Lear, not even a drop off the end of his nose. So there!
At this point the Duke of Burgundy makes his excuses, saying he thinks he can smell burning and was that really the time? He hot foots it out of the country with his best slippers on fire. Goneril and Regan are now high fiving and whooping like a couple of white trash princesses on Ricki Lake. The day is just getting better by the minute.
All eyes are on the king of France. The king of France is typically French in his approach. He says: ‘Pah! You feelthy Engleeessh beasts. I will marry zee delicious Cordelia just to spite you. What need have I for your five pound notes smelling of rosbif and stupidity? I own France and am infinitely superior to you in every way. Come Cordelia. Sit aside my giant codpiece and let us leave this benighted isle.’
This puts a bit of a damper on everyone else’s day. Cordelia snivels off to France moaning about ‘Papa’ and worrying about her declensions.
The Earl of Kent, terrified at the thought of spending the rest of his life trying to get the words right to ‘Doo Wa Diddy’ and drinking flaming sambucca out of the navels of pole dancing aristocrats tries to mend things by timidly mentioning that Cordelia might have a point and isn’t it a bit unreasonable of Lear to make her perform like a trained monkey wearing a fez. Lear takes his point and then sticks it in his ear. Kent is banished and has three days to make good his escape before Lear unleashes his killer gila monsters to track him down and eat him.
Lear commands everyone to instigate a ‘make fun of the French Friday’ and curses his ill luck at finding a sane son in law, not like those jibbering idiots Albany and Cornwall. He turns to Goneril and Regan. The euphoria of seeing their sibling publicly humiliated and suddenly being recast as ‘good’ children is now rapidly wearing off. The sisters move to the furthest corners of the ballroom where they sit glowering at each others and giving the evils to everyone.
Lear announces that he will take what would have been Cordelia’s portion of land and amalgamate it into two equal portions for Goneril and Regan. They are to rule jointly, as long as they understand and agree to one crucial thing.
This one crucial thing is that they still recognise that just because he has denounced his country, all his power and his influence doesn’t meant that he still can’t be king and therefore fabulous. He is to be allowed to do as he pleases and jaunt about the country hither and yon with buckets of knights to entertain him while everyone licks his shoes and loves him. He will split his time equally between the two adoring daughters he has left and they will bring him bacon sandwiches in bed, let him have the remote control at all times, and not complain when he leaves his socks in puddles in the banqueting hall.
They agree, crossing their fingers behind their backs and running off to get their servants to draw a big, thick, black line down the middle of the country with a marker pen, initialling all the major counties as they go.
Lear disappears with his fool to pack his shorts and flip flops, envisioning a life of endless sangria and wet t shirt competitions.
Kent reappears and tells everyone his secret. He is going to France to hang out with Cordelia, then he’s going to come back into the country disguised as someone called Caius. The king, who is as mad as ninepence will never suspect it is him and will allow Caius to protect him from the awful things that Kent, and everyone else in the world except Lear, knows are about to pour down upon him like a bucket of custard on a children’s Saturday morning television show. It’s not a great secret, but he’s pushed for time and if he doesn’t get going he will miss the ferry.
While all this is going on the sub plot has been merrily unfolding. To balance out all the oestrogen based madness that is about to ensue, and the whole pre-Freudian fathers and daughters who want to sleep with each other type theme, we now have the fathers and sons fiasco complete with castration fantasies and lots of stabby stabby. What joy.
Gloucester, who is terribly, terribly nice and well meaning and about as savvy as a fish supper, has two sons, Edgar, who is kind and lovely and breeds rabbits and helps children and old ladies cross the road and is also legitimate, and Edmund, who is the prince of darkness who likes to tie old ladies to children and throw them down the well with the rabbits, and who is illegitimate.
Gloucester, and in fact everyone else, constantly refers to how hilarious it is that Edmund is a bastard. Edmund is never allowed to forget that he is a bastard. All his towels are monogrammed with the initials ‘EB’, and all his clothes have little name tags with the words ‘Edmund, he’s a bastard doncha know?’ on. It is bound to make a person tetchy, all this reminding going on, especially if you were a bit evil to begin with and had about as much patience as a pre menstrual woman finding out that Cadbury’s have gone into liquidation and there will be no more Dairy Milk for the foreseeable future.
Gloucester thinks that everything in the Gloucester household is about as Stepford as it can be and serenely sails about counting his blessings for having such marvellous children who get on with each other so nicely and who just can’t help loving daddy to bits. Edgar bumbles about arranging his Panini football stickers in colour coded groups and saying ‘Hello birds, hello sky.’ Edmund thinks: ‘Fuck this for a game of soldiers,’ and spends his time whittling instruments of torture out of tree stumps and planning the demise of his family. After their demise he plans to scramble to power on their still smouldering corpses, have lots of sex and find ways of becoming Ming, Emperor of the known galaxy. He has to be done by Friday though because he’s doing fondue for six.
Edmund tells Gloucester that although his sons love him dearly, Edgar has decided that he will have to kill him because he still hasn’t properly forgiven him for that terrible bowl cut he made him have for his seventh birthday party where everyone pretended he was Richard III and tried to cut his head off. Gloucester naturally falls for it, hook line and sinker. This is mainly because Edgar shows him a letter. Gloucester believes everything he reads. He reads The Sun. Being a credulous male is one of the mainstays of Shakespearean drama. Gloucester still believes Gloucester Old Spots are named after him and that there really is a person called Granny Smith. His nickname at school was, ‘sucker’.
Edmund is a very thorough villain, who takes pride in his work. He didn’t get that Evil Villain badge at Scouts for nothing. To make sure that the job is done properly he also fakes a botched attack on Gloucester supposedly by Edgar. Gloucester screams and runs about like a girl until Edmund slaps him about a bit and points him in the whole ‘disinherit your son and make me king of the Gloucester Old Spots,’ direction. By this time if Edmund had said, ‘Raze your castle to the ground and build one out of spam and paperclips, it will be safer,’ Gloucester would have been hot footing it down to Tesco on the next bus. Edgar is doomed.
Edmund then moseys over to Edgar’s place and tells him that Gloucester wants his head on a plate and it’s all because he hasn’t enough hair to grow a pony tail and sports cars haven’t been invented yet. Oldest son baiting is the medieval equivalent to a mid life crisis.
Edgar shows his Gloucester spots by believing everything Edmund says immediately. Faced with an irate, spam wielding father he does what any sane son would do, and strips off, changes his name to Tom O’ Bedlam and spends the next four acts roaming around the countryside, naked and pretending to be possessed by devils. His catchphrase is ‘Tom’s a cold.’ Course he’s bloody cold, he’s a naked nobleman on a blasted heath in the middle of a storm. It just goes to prove that catchphrases didn’t really get going until the advent of Victorian Music Hall. Nothing worth catching until about 1865.
Back to the main plot.
Lear has packed his Bermuda shorts and has hot footed it over to Goneril’s pad with his hundred knights and his Fool. After four days of trying to clean melted cheese off the toasted sandwich maker and having to watch endless re runs of ‘Animals Do the Funniest Things,’ Goneril has had enough. She tells Lear he can take his stupid knights and bugger off. Or he can stay, get rid of his knights and clean up his act. If he sits in the cellar quietly and only comes out to buy her presents, he is more than welcome any time.
Lear is slightly incensed. He berates her, curses her womb and sets the Fool on her. The Fool calls her nuncle and tries to hit her with his bladder on a stick. Oddly this doesn’t help matters. She remains resolute, foot tapping, bosom jiggling, and firm.
Lear tries his ultimatum, which is basically, if you don’t let me do exactly what I want, I’m off. Not having half a kingdom to sweeten the deal makes this offer seem even less appealing and within about two lines Lear is out in the cold with only the Fool for company.
Whoops! Lear has buggered it up good and proper. He is not deterred. Enraged and shouting at the gods, which always helps, he has one last trick up his sleeve. He hotfoots it over to Regan’s pad to demand justice, retribution and a new bladder on a stick for the Fool.
Regan is not only sexually scary, she is also wily. She knew this would happen and isn’t having it, oh no, not one bit of it. She has been informed of Lear’s imminent arrival and has put locks on the phone, jam in the dvd player and has belt and braced the whole lot by going out, for about six months. She and her husband, sweep across the country for a visit with Gloucester, lucky man.
Kent/Caius in the meantime is back from France and is carrying a letter to Gloucester’s house saying: ‘Huzzah! The French are coming to save the day, get ready. Buy baguettes.’ On his way, Kent bumps into Goneril’s servant, Oswald, who is carrying notes backwards and forwards between the two evil sisters like a Tasmanian devil on crack. Oswald is a bit jittery, Kent is a bit miffed at having to be called Caius and travel about delivering post like a commoner. It is not a fortuitious meeting. Harsh words are spoken, names like ‘pooh pooh head’ and ‘bum breath’ are exchanged. Swords are waved.
Regan arrives and takes exception to Kent/Caius. She has him locked in the stocks to learn him and gives Oswald more crack and more notes. Off he pops at nine million miles an hour.
Regan makes herself at home at Gloucester Towers, despite the overwhelming smell of spam, which is really beginning to get on her nerves. She bolts all the doors, draws the curtains and puts the stereo on really loudly to drown out the sound of annoying ex kings approaching. Gloucester is somewhat put out. It is not a nice way to treat ex kings, especially if the French might be coming. Plus, he can’t get to Tesco’s for those baguettes. Regan is guarding the controls of the drawbridge and she’s not good at sharing.
Lear arrives at Gloucester’s. It is late, he is tired, the weather is turning and his shorts are chafing. His flip flops are not good on moor land and the Fool’s constant ‘I told you so’ is really beginning to get on his pip. He wants a brandy, a hot shower and some jousting to restore his convivial tyrannical nature. He’s already been to Regan’s and found that she’s out. He’s not happy. Not happy at all.
He stands at the gates doing a lot of pointing and demanding. He manages to get Kent/Caius free, but that’s it. Regan is playing hardball. She doesn’t want to have to pick his beard hair out of the shower drain for the foreseeable future and she had forgotten just what a whinging prig he can be. Plus, she hates the Fool with a passion. She tells him to get in the cellar and eat dirt, or go back to Goneril and grovel.
Lear is not good at grovelling. He is used to being grovelled at, not grovelling too. It really isn’t his night. He moans and wails and smites and moans some more. He cannot believe how mean everyone is being to him. He stomps off onto the moor with the bedraggled Fool and Kent/Caius following him. It is not a winning combination.
Lear flails about the moor, taking his clothes off, dancing in the light of the storm which is now breaking all around them and going violently off his chump. The Fool capers about calling him ‘nuncle’ repeatedly and making things ten times worse. Caius suggests a warm cup of Bovril and a lie down. Nobody takes any notice of him.
Lear climbs into some kind of random old pig sty where they have the great good fortune to meet Edgar who is being mad and naked and cold as well. He and Lear bond instantly and spend many pages gibbering on about demons getting into your vest and witches with eyes like laser beams etc. The Fool disappears at this point, out Fooled and realising just how dull the truly mad generally are. His place has been usurped and he sulks off to his anonymous death. Kent/Caius hangs in there grimly, dreaming of flock wallpaper and Judith Chalmers. Whatever gets you through the day.
Back at Gloucester Towers things are ramping up. Edmund has appeared and is secretly having sex with Regan every time Cornwall’s back is turned. He has also found the letter about the French, and the secret stash of baguettes in Gloucester’s cellar. To make sure he will get to page 97 of the Karma Sutra, he dobs in his dad to Regan for a knee trembler and his dad’s title.
Regan does not like the French, particularly not the French who are married to her snivelling, half witted sister. She is not best pleased with Gloucester. She ties him to a chair and plucks his eyes out with a resounding plop (I told you there would be lychees). That will learn him. She commandeers his castle, tells him Edmund has betrayed him and kicks him onto the moors with a boot up the backside. That’s what you get for being nice, you gullible fool. In the ensuing melee, Regan’s husband Cornwall is stabbed to death. What a shame.
Gloucester quite literally bumps into Edgar/Tom whilst bleeding all over the heather and believing that he is indeed barking mad, as who wouldn’t be, wandering about naked in this weather? He asks him to lead him to a cliff edge and push him off, because quite frankly life is a bit pants with no eyes and no castle and no baguettes and horrible children. Edgar agrees by spouting forty pages of nonsense about hedgecocks and spines and lemons. He secretly gives us, the audience to understand that he is not mad, will not chuck his blind dad off a cliff and will actually be manly and strong and save the day. Hooray! We are not sure we believe him, because up to now Edgar has been totally rubbish and weedy. The fact that he is our best hope for sanity and reason does not bode well. We do not tell Gloucester because he’s already having a bad day and it’s not about to improve.
Back at the axis of evil, Edmund has now met Goneril, who has come to see her sister to have a conference of war and work out how to get rid of that bloody nuisance Cordelia, once and for all. Edmund is also shagging Goneril by this time. In fact, he’s shagging everyone who will give him anything at all, including a fluffy Polo from the bottom of their handbag. He’s gone sex and power mad, the crazy fool.
Goneril shows her thicky credentials by deludedly thinking that she and she alone is Edmund’s one true love, just as he is shagging the under parlour maid for tuppence and some broken biscuits. She, quite stupidly tells Albany, her frankly weedy and un-evil husband to get stuffed. He is not best pleased at her behaviour, and hangs around telling her so at every given opportunity. He is not going to go quietly, oh no. He turns into the wettest stalker on record and follows her around bleating forever. She is so hopped up on sex and wickedness she couldn’t care less and just makes ‘blah, blah, blah’ faces every time he opens his mouth. She is also really good at eye rolling and tutting.
Goneril knows Regan is shagalicious and decides that she is not having any of Edmund, which just shows quite how deluded she is not to twig that he’s already had her and every other person with breasts on the planet. She and Regan plot together to kill Cordelia, and separately to kill each other, just so they can have Edmund. Edmund tells everyone in a loud voice how he thinks they’re both demented old whores and is only after their Premium Bonds. They don’t care. The words: ‘He’ll change when we’re married,’ are bandied about incessantly.
Meanwhile Gloucester is at Dover with Tom/Edgar. Tom/Edgar pretends to take him to the cliff edge and push him off. Really he is fibbing and is just on the beach. Gloucester doesn’t know because he’s blind. Duh! He screams as he plummets four inches to his ‘death’. Tom/Edgar pretends to bugger off and comes back as a Doverian fisherman with a heart of gold and hands of halibut. He picks up Gloucester and tells him that it was the devil who pushed him off the cliff and he is now ‘saved’. By saved he means no better off than before but with sand all over him. How lucky.
At this point they meet Lear who is now totally as mad as a hat and was lucky not to get pneumonia into the bargain. They have a bonkers reunion and talk a bit about mice and kingship in a terribly symbolic way. They all wander over to the French army where Lear recognises Cordelia and finally has the good grace to be ashamed of himself, but only a bit, because he is still quite, quite mad.
The two armies go to war while the two sisters continue to bicker and fight with each other over who loves Edmund best. Edmund is bored of the whole thing and goes off to fight in the hope he might die and get rid of them both.
The baddies win. Edmund captures Lear and Cordelia and sends them off to be executed because he hates soppy reunions and has had enough. He goes back to the two remaining sisters, jubilant and with a massive erection. The sisters froth at the mouth with desire. Albany looks on, even more disapproving. He’s just found a letter from Goneril which asks a minion to kill him so she can marry Edmund. He is really quite annoyed by this, and has just twigged on that the sisters may not have been acting in Lear’s best interests all along.
Edgar in the meantime has plonked his father under a tree and watched him die, which really cheered him up on top of everything else. All this capering about naked has made him finally decide to grow a spine and he hot foots it over to the enemy camp to fight Edmund, in disguise obviously, otherwise where is the fun? He is now determined to be in charge of Gloucester Towers, even if it is just a mouldering heap of spam that nobody wants. It’s the principle. Plus, he wants his Panini stickers back.
While the big fight is going on the two sisters are alternately cheering on Edmund, trying to ignore Albany’s tutting and still trying to kill each other. Goneril has had enough of being ‘nice’ and has finally ripped the gloves off. She poisons Regan and capers about spouting on about how she’s going to marry Edmund and sit astride his giant manly cock and rule the galaxy. Regan dies in agony and annoyance. Edmund is a bit put off by this and misses his footing. Edgar, who otherwise fights like a girl, takes his advantage and stabs him to death, unmasking himself at the same time.
Albany cannot believe his luck and is capering up and down shouting about telling her so and how she will have to stay married to him now when Goneril makes her one good decision and kills herself with a handy sword which has been left lying around. Albany sulks off into the shrubbery. Denied.
Edmund has a death bed conversion, admits he has been a bit of a bastard (who knew?) and confesses that he has sent Cordelia and Lear to their deaths. Everyone who is left alive, i.e. Kent/Caius and Edgar, hot foot it over to the prison.
Unfortunately (or fortunately, if you hate weedy girls) it is too late for Cordelia. She has been hung by her scrawny neck. Lear carries her around wailing and saying how sorry he is, and how if he hadn’t had those ten Babycham and brandy cocktails things might have been different. He signs the pledge and then recognises Kent just long enough to clear up the ‘I thought you were a random geezer called Caius’ mystery (enfeebled though it was). He then descends into dribbling lunacy once more and dies. Any random passing bloke who is left can now become king. The first thing he does is order a lot of hot water and some mops for all the blood stains. It will never come out. Never.
Fin
