Yaël Farber’s production of King Lear at the Almeida Theatre is imbued with an undercurrent of tension that feels as if it’s constantly on the edge of exploding into violence. It’s not her first crack at Shakespeare – in 2001 she adapted Julius Caesar, and she directed Hamlet at the Gate in Dublin in 2018 and Macbeth at the Almeida in 2021 – but I’d be willing to bet it’s her most virulent.

Danny Sapani’s Lear flies into a terrifying rage, scattering microphones across the stage

The opening scene – a swanky press conference that could have been lifted straight from an episode of Succession – neatly sets the tone of the snippy relationships. Danny Sapani’s Lear is a man who isn’t used to hearing the word ‘No’, flying into a terrifying rage and scattering microphones across the stage with a powerful backhand when Cordelia (Gloria Obianyo) refuses to take part in his circus of public flattery. Regan (Faith Omole) and Goneril (Akiya Henry) are the dutiful daughters, each assuring their ailing father (and the implied audience of the conference) of their devotion to him while at the same time vying with each other for a larger part of his kingdom. Lear’s dislike for them both is clear. As is the filial warmth between Lear and Cordelia, which makes his disowning of her all the more heart-wrenching – and his descent all the more tender.

Sapani flits between wounded father, humiliated ruler and spiky, unpredictable caged lion, hemmed in at every turn. And he’s utterly believable in each iteration. His raging indignation at being stripped of his virility and power; his crushing acceptance of age (‘They told me I was everything; ‘tis a lie, I am not ague-proof’); his return to a child-like state, near-naked on the heath, is devastating.

But if Sapani is a brilliant Lear, Clarke Peters is an even better Fool. Peters, best known for playing detective Lester Freamon in The Wire, has an easy way about him, delivering hard truths with both care and humour. It’s clear just how valuable this Fool is to this Lear and, straying from Shakespeare’s original work, Farber gives him some of the closing lines, usually attributed to Edgar: ‘Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.’ He delivers them with a lyricism that leads perfectly into the cast’s rendition of Dylan’s ‘A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall’ to finish. It sounds gimmicky, but it’s chilling and beautiful.

Merle Hensel’s set – which could seem Spartan in the hands of a less engaged cast – is so powerful and well-imagined that it’s almost a character in its own right. Sparsely populated with chairs, a rug and a piano, the stage is lined at the back by a curtain of hanging chains. The shielded second space this creates is used to great effect when Edmund (a lusty, chain-smoking, manipulative and often very funny Fra Fee) shares a passionate kiss with one sister quite literally behind the other’s back.

But it’s in the scenes on the heath where the staging really comes into its own. With the chains set swinging, Edgar (once a nerdy rake, bullied by his brother Edmund, but by now ‘Poor Tom’) runs around the space with a long cape of plastic sheeting topped with dirt trailing behind. He cakes the floor with it. When I step outside at the interval, there’s mud everywhere, so much so that it’s almost impossible to tell where the world of Lear ends and reality begins. (I hope the cleaners get a pay rise.)

There’s not an actor on the stage who doesn’t earn their place. Matthew Tennyson puts in a strong shift as Edgar, an often thankless role as he flits between meekness and madness. Omole and Henry are vicious as Regan and Goneril, turning against their father with thinly veiled greed. Henry is especially devilish when she encourages the Duke of Cornwall (Edward Davis) to pluck out Gloucester’s eyes. It’s truly gruesome. And Obianyo is an affecting Cordelia, truthful to a fault. She also has one hell of a singing voice.

Farber has called King Lear the ‘Mount Everest’ of theatre. This towering production leaves Everest in its shadow.<//>