As you look through the images and photographs from past productions of King Lear, think about:

• What choices the designer has made for both characters and what that suggests about them. There are references in the play to the traditional ‘motley’ costume of a court jester in Shakespeare's time, including his hat or ‘coxcomb’. How has the designer interpreted this and what effect does the costume have in suggesting the relationship between Lear and the Fool?
• How the relationship between these two people of very different status comes across in each production. Are there moments that show an understanding and intimacy between them, or moments that show more distance?
• The Fool is the only one of Lear’s followers who is with him at the start of the storm scene. How is the moment of King Lear and the Fool in the storm shown in each production?

How would you stage this relationship and present these characters in order to show the dynamic between them?

As you look through the images and photographs from past productions of King Lear, think about:

• What impression does each production give about what sort of king King Lear is? How is the status of each character shown in the first court scene, in relationship to the king and to each other?
• The action of the play moves from showing King Lear with his followers in his own court to showing King Lear and his followers in his daughter Goneril's home, as in the image from the 2010 production. How have the director and designer shown the differences between these two spaces and what does this suggest about their different ways of ruling?
• How similar and different are the choices directors and designers have made and what do their choices suggest about the key themes they are exploring in the play?

How would you stage Lear’s Court and create a sense of its grandeur and structure, while also showing how the events of the play affect this as the king slowly loses control?

As you look through the images and photographs from past productions of King Lear, think about:

• How have the director and designer shown the violence of this scene? Have stage eyeballs and blood been used or has the violence been more symbolic? How might this affect the behaviour and responses of Regan and Cornwall? Can you always see the characters involved or do parts of the action take place offstage? What might be the advantage of this?
• Has the director chosen to emphasise the youth of Cornwall and Regan in contrast to the age of Gloucester in some way? What effect might this have on the audience?
• How is the relationship between Regan and Cornwall shown in this scene? Are they both equally in the wrong? What do their attitudes suggest about their characters?

How would you stage this moment and create drama and suspense around Regan and Cornwall’s treatment of Gloucester?

As you look through the images and photographs from past productions of King Lear, think about:

• In the play, Lear describes himself as being ‘Fourscore and upward’ or over eighty years old. The text tells us that he is still fit enough to go hunting and strong enough to kill the man who hanged Cordelia. How are Lear’s strength and his old age shown in this moment? Does he carry Cordelia or is she brought on in some other way? Which interpretation of this moment feels most reflective of his character?
• Lear’s line on entering this scene, ‘Howl, howl, howl’ indicates how inadequate language is for how he feels and how his control of the world has been shattered since the start of the play. How does this moment in each production suggest how Lear feels?
• How do the different presentations of Cordelia’s body affect the moment? Is she similarly dressed in each? She is left at the head of the French army before her death and her murder is ordered by Edmund. Is there any sign in the way she is brought on that she has fought with the army?

How would you stage this moment and how do the responses of other characters on stage help to create the drama of the event?