King Lear Old Vic Glenda Jackson

It seemed to me that her portrayal, which combined Brechtian distance with Artaudian savagery, was calling upon Jackson's groundbreaking work with director Peter Brook.

"I studiously avoid any academic dissections of the play and any kind of previous experience of playing," she said. "For me, it's all in the play. And in that play in particular, it is all there."

How would she describe Warner's postmodern staging? " 'Fashionable' is the word," she dryly retorted. Naturally, I followed up by asking how she got on with Warner. "We strongly disagreed about things," Jackson said. "I still feel that there were parts of the play where the riff weren't actively dug out, but there you go."