Almeida theatre Artistic Director Michael Attenborough directs Jonathan Pryce in the role of a lifetime, William Shakespeare’s King Lear.

When Lear asks each of his daughters to profess their love for him, he is flattered by the false hyperbole of Regan and Goneril. When his youngest daughter Cordelia confesses to love him simply as a daughter should, his pride is dented and he casts her out of his kingdom. Too late to realise his mistake, and forced from power by his offspring, an increasingly impotent and frail Lear descends into madness.

Pryce returns to the London stage after recently appearing in The Caretaker. His work also includes The Goat, Or Who Is Sylvia?, Glengarry Glen Ross and the musicals My Fair Lady, Oliver! and Miss Saigon. On screen he has been seen in Cranford, Pirates Of The Caribbean, Tomorrow Never Dies and Evita.