As a latecomer to Game of Thrones, I am struck by how many people tell me it is “very Shakespearean”. It is as if they need to justify its heady escapism and heavy reliance on bonking and brutality. But its debt to the Bard – apart from the rivalry between the houses of Lannister and Stark – rests mainly on the casting. Watching the first 11 episodes, I noticed four Lears past and to come (Julian Glover, David Bradley, Oliver Ford-Davies and Roger Allam), a Macbeth (Sean Bean), a Hamlet and Henry V (Iain Glen) and a Cassius (Michelle Fairley) among many others.
Because it is presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company and staged by Dominic Cooke, who memorably directed The Hollow Crown on television, we shall doubtless hear the same arguments about Game of Thrones: The Mad King at Stratford. But, although there are frequent nods to Shakespeare, they totally lack the resonance of the original. Our first sight of Michael Shaeffer’s King Aerys with a white beard, a leafy crown and no shoes almost screams “Lear on the heath”. But where Lear gradually declines into insanity (“O fool I shall go mad”) and comes out the other side, Shaeffer’s Aerys is a dotty despot from start to finish. The use of tournaments to settle dynastic disputes also reminds us of the opening of Richard II – but where that event is aborted and ultimately causes the king’s downfall, here the image of embattled jousters is endlessly repeated.
